If you’ve been following Slay the Spire 2’s journey through early access, you’re more than likely aware of the fact that the game has been review-bombed three separate times. Now, the third review-bombing we can ignore for hopefully obvious reasons, but the first two rounds of negative reviews actually merit some discussion.
In case you’re unaware, in late March, developer Mega Crit announced Beta Patch v0.100.0. For a number of reasons, many players in China took issue with the balance changes introduced in this patch. However, their main problem concerned the Act 3 boss Doormaker, who was heavily reworked in Beta Patch v0.100.0, leading to Slay the Spire 2 being immediately review-bombed.
The game was then review-bombed a second time by players in China on April 17, following the release of Slay the Spire 2’s first “Major Update,” which moved the majority of Beta Patch v0.100.0’s changes, including the reworked Doormaker fight, over to the game’s main branch. The argument from the Chinese player base was largely the same this time around, and they were simply protesting that the changes had not been reverted.
For players outside of China, the reaction was somewhat confusing, especially since Mega Crit outright stated that Doormaker was, based on player metrics, the easiest Act 3 boss in the game. That being said, it’s important to note that China has a very different outlook on review-bombing. As the likes of Discord, X, and even the majority of Steam’s own social features are banned in the country, many players in China believe that review-bombing is their only method of getting feedback to developers on the platform.
Still, most likely as a result of the language barrier, players outside of China remained confused. It was obvious that the Chinese playerbase hated Doormaker, but why exactly? What was it about this boss specifically? Thankfully, we now have our answer, thanks to a YouTube video by content creator Iris Raphael.
Iris Raphael invited several top Slay the Spire 2 players and streamers from China to a roundtable-style discussion back in early May, and on May 26, they uploaded a version of the discussion that features English subtitles. The discussion features eight of the most high-profile Slay the Spire 2 players from China, including the likes of Brkstar, White Seal, Xiaofu9, and Dong’gua.
The video is roughly two hours and twenty minutes long, so don’t feel bad if you have more pressing things to do with your free time. I, however, do not, so here’s a rough round-up of their main points.
Outside of Doormaker, their main issue seems to be Act 1. For a start, they all seem to agree that the Overgrowth biome in Act 1 is a lot harder than the Underdocks biome, and I actually think they’re correct on this point. It does feel like the basic enemies in Overgrowth hit a lot harder, especially when you take the Raider trios and the Slithering Strangler/Snapping Jaxfruit combo team into account.
However, I don’t quite agree with their point that Act 1 is bad because it restricts the decks you can build. Their point is that it forces you into taking a lot of AoE and high-block cards just to survive, which, in turn, leads to you filling your deck with cards that may not synergize with more specific cards in Act 2 and beyond. I think that’s completely true—I just don’t think it’s a bad thing. If you were able to build a fully synergistic deck with ease in Act 1, it would trivialize the remaining two acts.
That being said, this does highlight a larger problem with their argument: “Save Load” runs. You see, about half of the players in the video refer to themselves as “SL” players. In short, SL runs in Slay the Spire 2 are geared towards allowing the player to save and reload during a fight so that they can get the best possible outcome. In the video, several of the players state how many consecutive wins they’ve had in a row, with one player stating that they’re currently on a 150-win streak…something which is, of course, only really possible to achieve through save loading.
This, for me, is where the disconnect comes into play. This is only really a popular format in China, as top-level players and streamers from other countries don’t use save loading–or, as they would refer to it, save scumming. This, in turn, explains exactly why players in China did not like the Doormaker fight. Due to Doormaker looping between phases where it exhausts your cards and restricts your ability to draw, the boss basically counters save loading.
Of course, since this video was released, Doormaker has been removed from the game and replaced with a new boss, Aeonglass. However, the majority of negative reviews that stemmed from Doormaker’s buffs remain on Steam. Perhaps this will no longer be the case once the changes in the beta branch are introduced to the main branch.
Personally, I do think the Chinese pros make some good points in the video, but there’s one thing I take issue with; they’re arguing that certain changes should be made in the context of SL runs. Considering that this is not a format outside of China, it does feel as if they’re arguing for changes that the overwhelming majority of players in other regions won’t actually want.
Perhaps the only way to keep everyone happy would be to introduce a mode that specifically caters to players who want to play this way. I’m not exactly sure how that would work, but I know for damn sure that there’s absolutely no way Mega Crit could balance Slay the Spire 2 in a way that appeals to both SL and non-SL players. That being said, Mega Crit has already stated that they’re planning to introduce new modes in the future, so maybe this is something the devs are considering.
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