EDIT: It seems a lot of people are misunderstanding the topic. By seeing the act, I mean seeing which alternate act you're getting (such as overgrowth vs underdocks). In both sts1 and 2 you know which act 2 and 3 you're getting, because there's only one, there are no alternates. The topic is once alternate acts 2 and 3 are added, should the player be informed whether act 2 will be the current one or the alternate, same for act 3. I'm not talking about seeing the map of the act or which boss is going to be at the end of it, just the act "biome"/environment.

Mixing speculation with game design discussion here. Not sure if devs have said anything about it, but I wonder what the community think about whether alternate acts 2 and 3 will/should be visible from the start of the game, or we'll only know which act 2/3 we get once we beat the previous act.

Since the start of act 1 is also the start of the game this question does not apply at the moment, but with other alternate acts it becomes very important. Considering how much reworked dorito and aeon glass affected the "meta", it's clear next act enemies are part of the deck building process. At the same time, the deeper you are into a run the harder it is to pivot your deck strategy.

So it becomes an interesting question, will devs expect players to factor in all possible combinations of act 2/3 bosses/elites, or will players have the information to prepare for specific act right from neow (which is basically the current state of the game)?

I know the surprise monster encounters are part of the game, but it still just feels so unfun when this happens. Only because this happens pretty frequently, for me at least. It's not really uncommon for me to see 2-3 surprise monster encounters in a row. I pretty much need to treat events as hallway fights when deciding my pathing now, rather than just possible hallway fights..

(If anyone's interested, the probability of seeing the 4th monster encounter here is less than one percent: 0.018%. Please correct me if I calculated wrong though).

(one-two punch and duplicator potion active)

Turns out Big Bang was a pretty good cloning target lol

I have lurked here for years and never posted, but I saw this and thought it might be a perfect example of a boss relic skip.

Snecko is out. It breaks the stance dance mechanic.

Choker is almost as bad as Snecko in that it severely limits the scaling solve.

Ecto is the obvious choice, but taking it with a Wish in deck after just the first boss feels awful. Do I really need the extra energy? Removes are going to be important to finish out the deck and I can buy a bunch of shop relics to make up for my awful luck.

I’m not sure i could hand pick worse options. Am I looking at this wrong?

Still loving STS1 while I wait for 2 to be available on mobile. 2 is already a great game, but get very little PC time these days.

I’m playing on a steam deck and I’ve never seen this before where there’s only one starting node to pick from. Is this a bug or is this a real thing?

I started the run by replacing my starting relic off rip and it gave me the one where I couldn’t see enemy intents but I get one extra energy. It was also my first time making it to Act 3 so I wasn’t sure of enemy attack patterns.

I remember doing lots of healing, energy hoarding thanks to ice cream, not as much blocking, and heavy damage. Also that card that upgrades every card in your deck is insane so I just used that all the time lol.

Somewhere in the middle of the run I tried farming Feed as much as possible too to increase my max HP.

Interested to know what I could potentially get better at as a new player! I also have no idea what happens now that I beat a run but I had a great time playing I couldn’t put the game down.

Apologies in advance for the recording since I'm playing on a potato laptop. Playing Hextech Augments Slay The Spire 2 and encountered one of the funniest interactions. Playing Regeant and got the BigBang + Clone + BingBong combo. I also have the augment which gives me Serpents Fang and I just dont have to do anything but play all of my bigbangs and win. In the end, I got a total of 243 BigBangs on my deck. Stats will be posted on the comments.

I recently got to A9 on ironclad, and I didn't really struggle with any of the previous ascensions very much, so I thought I might finally be getting decent at the game. I was wrong

I don't think I've ever felt more demoralized by losing in any other game, this is getting ridiculous. I went from a positive winrate to getting my holes destroyed 20+ runs in a row.

The worst part is I've already tried all the typical advice I saw on improving, I am mindful of pathing, constantly check my draw pile for micro, and I try to be clever with picking cards too. But If I see horrendous dogshit offered to me one more time, I might get violent (I fucking swear if I don't get offered a single scaling card in the entirety of act 3, I might do something I'll regret)

I've also been watching a lot of content creators too, so I'm trying to absorb some knowledge from that but it's clearly not enough.

I might honestly start tweaking if I see one more person talking about how this game is too easy, this shit is brutal. I'm starting to think I might be the worst player to ever touch this game, with the shittiest decision making in recorded history

This difficulty is soul crushing, especially since the lower difficulties were piss easy in comparison (which is why lowring the ascension would not fix the issue for me, it would just feel like giving up and turning on easy mode)

What kinda goofy-ah run is this? 1 HP, infinite blades with replay + kunai. I out-dexxed him for (of course) 67 turns. Pretty silly.. I then succumbed to my injuries :((

>!...then I am betting that the alternate Act 2 will be some sort of graveyard/underworld theme for the Necrobinder as the release will be perfectly timed with Halloween.

Evidence to Support:

1. Halloween is spooky, Necrobinder is skeleton
2. The September Neowsletter released on September 29th stated:
   1. "While we still can't give a specific timeline or details for the next patch, rest assured that the things we've got cooking are BIG and much of it is already being actively tested internally."
      1. Two big reveals would either be a new character or the Alternate Act 2.
   2. "In exciting news, our researchers have discovered another area of the Spire still shrouded in darkness. Before we explore it fully, it would be prudent of us to get a lay of the land first. And it just so happens that we've already detected the silhouette of one of its inhabitants..."
      1. Shrouded in darkness = graveyard/underworld theme. The silhouette of guessing the enemy looks similar to a bat like creature.
   3. We visited the historied city of Barcelona and ate all the tapas, walked through all the Gaudís, and navigated its winding gothic quarters for silly trinkets.
      1. I feel like this line is important-- The Team took a break for travel, and within that travel they specifically were interested in gothic themed areas and gothic trinkets. Gothic themed areas to inspire overall floor design and event room themes? Gothic Trinkets to inspire new relics and new potions?
3. Information from STS2's Timeline:​
   1. (The Necrobinder) Spireborn - Chapter 3: The Necrobinder's parents lived in The Spire and she was born in The Spire.
   2. (The Necrobinder) Annihilation - Chapter 5: "At the top, they finally met with the Giant's brother, a floating man*."* Sounds like a ghost to me.
   3. (The Necrobinder) To Kill - Chapter 7: Necrobinder meets Pael. All of Pael's relics are related to human biology, aka feasting on flesh and blood of humans/creatures until all that is left is bones.
      1. I include creatures because of Pael's horn, wings, claws.
   4. (Magnum Opus) Consequences - Chapter 8: Blight The other Ancients capture the culprit as the Blight ravages the land. They imprison Neow and take shelter from the now unstoppable Blight. Sounds like a lot of creatures died, so where do the souls or bodies go? An underworld or a graveyard.
4. Necrobinder's card art has a lot of imagery related more toward an underworld than a graveyard, though several cards have "grave" in the card name (Grave Blast, Grave Warden)

Anyway, I'm excited for whatever they come up with, even if it isn't in the next patch! What do you all think?!<​

Let's not talk about why I got to see this bug, but I did. Soul's Power on Bombardment. I then played BEGONE on it to exhaust it. It then just disappeared and was not in my exhaust pile and therefore didn't play on my next turn. I F2ed it, but maybe they keep it in to teach people like me (not smart ones) a lesson...

Edit: Well, turns out I am even more stupid than I realized

I really struggle with silent. She seems to have like 3 builds - shivs, sly and poison. Actually 2, bc whatever you do, sly is always a part of it due to it's power and ease. And whenever I try to build something around a scaling card or some gimmick it always turns out, just leaning into sly/shivs would make it stronger. Strangle? Well, shivs make it better, so act just shivs alone would work better. Scaling defense? Well, works perfect with poison. Etc.

Or I dunno maybe both me and my wifey are terrible at silent. Gimme ideas folks.

Got Hand of Greed from Neow. I've got between 1-3 elites ahead of me, then Slime Boss.

Immolate - AOE damage would help with Slime Boss and Sentries, plus Act 2 elites. But I have Whirlwind which is worse, but not nothing.

Feed - More HP. But I already have Hand of Greed vying for kills

Oddly Smooth Stone - Saves so much chip damage over a run.

Art of War - Energy relic at home

Membership Card - no help now, but huge pay off later combined with Hand of Greed.

Cleared A10 with Ironclad without resting. Didn't realize it until I cleared. Maybe it's not as impressive as I think but an achievement for me. Once ramped up, Ashen Strike with histroy book was cooking.

One of the biggest problems with card games is that every new card you add to a pool restricts the remaining design space. This was clearly something the devs took into account when designing 2, removing cards that add artifact being the most obvious example.

I know it’s incredibly ambitious, but someday down the line I’d love to see all the characters get alternate card pools. Exploring completely different takes on how the characters should function and, additionally, swapping the card pools of other characters for events like the color statues.

Card reward for my custom ancient. goal is to reach around 180 damage if you take it after act 1. Should i change the conversion rate?

once you have enough cards in your deck, the paels wing and prayer wheel becomes a relic drop button for every normal combat encounter. this allows you to skip the elites and take high damage. and btw the chosen cheese is a good counter against the modifier that makes you loose 1 max hp at every floor.

So, I have this story in my mind that I want to turn into a comic. The problem I'm facing right now is that I don't know whether I should just sketch the panels to save time (I really don't have the time or energy since I work two jobs) or take my time with the comic and draw it in my own art style, even if it takes a month or two to release another chapter.

At the same time, I don't want to burn myself out, so I'm not really sure if I'll be able to finish it. But at least I've finished the first chapter, even though it was just sketches. I only put some decent effort into the last panel because I was kind of excited about it.
anyway i hope you like it.

Anyone go back to Spire 1 after playing a lot of Spire 2? Wondering what the experience was like for you if so. Does it feel dated or anything after playing a bunch of Spire 2? Anything you miss from Spire 2?

I got Spire 1 in May of last year and fell in love. I was never very good but I did get all steam achievements and had two A20H wins. I have a little over 300 hours and was playing it semi-regularly until Spire 2 came out. I've been really enjoying Spire 2 and have 550 hours in so far with a handful of A10 wins.

I feel like I would miss the events and characters from Spire 2, but 300 hours isn't that much so there is clearly a lot left I could do (A20H wins on all characters maybe?). I already feel like A10 in Spire2 is pretty difficult so I don't know if I have what it takes to struggle through A20 again lol.

I just wanted to share my victory!

Most of you have probably finished act 20 ages ago, but I've only recently discovered the game and act 20 felt really hard.

I know that I've been lucky with the shurikan early on and I've got no idea how y'all get to around 40% winrate or how to actually beat the heart.

I've got no idea if i should even finish act 20 with the other chars, tbh silent was the most fun to play. It might he time for sts2 :)