Universal Wayward Souls (by Rocketcat Games) [TouchArcade Game of the Year 2014]

Hello sir, thank you for the kind comment. I'm honestly a bit on the unhealthily-obsessed side with Wayward Souls, have been since launch. Every time I have nothing to do for a short period (that often turns into a long period of time) I reach for Wayward Souls. I was obsessed with Mage Gauntlet before it. If you haven't picked up that these games are spiritual siblings by reading the thread, you must pick it up. Any fan of one will love the other.

To answer your question, yes, emberforges do stop in the same place they would during a 20-floor run. I think this is to keep some factor of a "lucky run" of your favourite items intact, instead of just having an emberforge every 2 floors for the whole Endless Shadow and eventually just getting the levelled-up versions of your exact preferred emberforge items. I think having it as a roll of the dice keeps the randomness and luck factors in place, and also provides that extra "YUSSSSSS" moment when you do luck out once in a while and get all your favourite items in a run.

You come at a good time, the Paladin update is around the corner. We were shown a quick teaser of it a couple of weeks ago, and I've had to walk around with a jacket tied around my waist ever since.

 

You made my day with this. And yeah, I can tell (anyone would) this game is good even though I haven't been much into it as some users... xD

 

Beyond Stoked

I actually am a bit obsessive with WS as well, and have played MG too. MG is really great, reminds me a lot of of Zelda =] I've spent a lot of time the last 2-3 years researching RocketCat, because I think they are leading from the front with mobile games. I think it's amazing that WS is a mobile game, yet has more substance than quite a few games I've played on consoles. I also develop/design games indepently, it's very inspirational to know that WS was made by just theee people (4 including Joey, who made the OST). It took them ~2 years, but you can see and feel the polish that those two years bought. And I saw those videos RC posted on FB! I think it's Keppa playing, but there are 3 videos of Gallus in action! I literally started yelling last night when I found them, and my GF had to settle me down, lol. I have been waiting on this update since they first posted about it a long time ago. One thing I'm curious about. Keppa has mentioned that the PC ver of WS is about 20% faster than the mobile version. I get why, and I also agree with it the change, I think it'll elevate the difficulty completely in line with how much easier it's going to be using tactile input methods. What I'm hoping is that the mobile version stays the same speed. It would be totally incredible to have the choice on mobile, for those that have MiFi controllers. Like a setting in options where you could identify if you were using touch/tactile inputs, and the game could adjust accordingly. Just a thought.

 

I wish there were Cloud saving so I could restore my old app data that I backed up. If they can't make cloud saving then I think the best alternative would be to open up the app to "file sharing" which some app devs have done as a good alternative to cloud saving. I think more devs should go this route if Cloud saving is so hard to implement.

 

Quazonk, I don't know if you saw my previous posts where I mentioned you, but I have been staring st your name in the LB for some time now, and ironically, Warrior is my worst class and Abbie is my best (have seen your preference ranking).

What's your "perfect" set up with Blythe? And and in depth tips? I'm intimately familiar with enemies/mechanics, I'm past Gold with all toons and I've cleared Diamond with Abbie. I've made it to floor 35 on endless with her and I'm convinced with enough practice and lvl II gear, I can go the distance, at least to get in top 25, which is 147(?) floors. I'd appreciate it if I could pick your brain and ask you some questions about it!

 

A new challenger approaches

 

Wee. I can't wait.

Will the upcoming update finally allow us to use gold for anything else than buying upgrades ?
My charcaters are sitting on a shnitzton of gold and there's nothing I can do with it

 

Hey KingCuba, sorry I missed your previous posts addressed to me. Sure, I’d be glad to share some tips/emberforge preferences.
For Blythe, my ideal emberforge items are as follows:

Weapon – Skullhack: A little on the slow side if you’re used to the quicker-moving characters like the Rogue, but does major damage, especially after upgrading. The main benefit of this weapon for me is that once upgraded, common enemies that take two or more hits to kill with your original weapon like Slimes, Vampire Bats or Wild Pigs only take one charged strike to kill with the Skullhack. The Skullhack’s charged attack also has the Warrior sort of “stride” forward when executed, which gives it a good range advantage over melee enemies. Imagine those times when you’re in a roomful of Wild Pigs with a few Dire Boars charging around (I come across these rooms often). With the Skullhack you can just keep your distance, charge up, and take out a whole wave of them with one long strike.
When using the Skullhack, I always keep my charge attack pre-charged whenever entering a new room so it’s “loaded” for the first enemy I see. It has a broad striking range so you can often hit many enemies at a time.

Gauntlet – Steel Plates: Decreased damage taken for both projectile and melee attacks, what more could you need? I always love getting this upgrade because frankly the rest of Blythe’s gauntlet upgrades are nothing special. Most are upgrades to your throwing axe item, which isn’t especially useful since Blythe is mainly a melee attacker, and axes are in limited supply. The only non-throwing-axe-related item aside from the Steel Plates are the Ravenstone Cuffs, which only offer a simple crit chance upgrade. The Steel Plates are especially good if you’re building your skills in the game and just want to make it a few more floors. For experienced players the Steel Plates are like insurance for whenever you encounter what I call a “nightmare room”. One of those rare rooms where you can’t really formulate a strategy to systematically take out all the enemies in the room due to sheer volume. These rooms sometimes are filled with spawners/resurrectors like Slime Mamas, Drudge Seers, or Thorned Temerators and basically you just have to abandon your strategy and hack away at everything in front of you until it’s all dead, usually taking damage along the way. The Steel Plates can be a lifesaver in those situations.

Shield – Thorned Heart: Deals damage to melee attackers. Since I often dodge projectiles and block melee attacks, the damage bonus is great for my play style. Once upgraded it deals an even bigger dose of damage to melee attackers, even enough to kill weak enemies. It’s lightweight so it doesn’t slow the Warrior down, which is a huge benefit since the Warrior is already fairly slow-moving. It’s only middle-of-the-pack as far as durability goes, but the increase in durability for other heavier shields such as the Stonebeard Slab just isn’t worth the decrease in character speed.
Honourable mention here goes to the Obsidian Ward shield. If I don’t get a Thorned Heart in a run, I’m fine with getting an Obsidian Ward instead. Its medium weight so it’s fairly durable and decreases your speed slightly, but not so much to leave you vulnerable to attacks like the heavier shields. You can also store up to 8 shields instead of the standard 6, so that’s another bonus of the Obsidian Ward.

As far as in-depth tips, I’ll try to think of a few off the top of my head. This section would so much longer if I were commentating over a run and reminded of all the little strategies I employ during a run, but I’ll do my best to share the strategies that work best for me. All of these strategies should be assumed to be playing as the Warrior. I often play using the other classes but the Warrior’s always been my “main” class.

- Use throwing axes (or any enemy projectiles) to get the attention of enemies and lure them, not to deal damage. Remember throwing axes are in limited supply, so if you use them as a weapon, you’ll only kill maybe 3 enemies with your 9 axes before you’re out. Don’t use them as a weapon. Instead, use them to get the attention of enemies in a room you haven’t entered yet to lure them out. Once you enter a room, the door closes and you “activate” the enemies inside. But if you throw an axe into a room and hit an enemy before entering, you’ll get the attention of enemies in the room and they will come out after you. This works as a great “divide and conquer” strategy as it allows you the space to move freely and run from enemies if needed (not locked into a room), and take them out one-at-a-time using range and decreased enemy concentrations to your advantage. This is especially great for defusing the aformentioned “nightmare rooms” before they happen. Throw an axe into the room and deal with the enemies in a slow stream as they approach instead of being locked in a room with all of them at once.


- Prioritize killing spawners/revivers first upon entering a room. Beating the crap out of loads of enemies in a room won’t do a lot of good if more enemies are being spawned as fast or faster than you can kill them, or if they’re being resurrected as you kill them. If you enter a room with enemies that spawn or resurrect other enemies (such as Dire Drudges, Golden Slimes, Royal Temerators or Wraiths), take them out first even if you have to take a hit to get to them. This stops the endless enemy factory at the source and allows you to take out the rest of the enemies in the room without worrying about others spawning or reviving.

- Learn how to blitz the bosses. Each boss has vulnerabilities to be exploited that can sometimes turn a painstaking battle into a 15-second wipeout.

Humphrey: Humphrey is extremely easy to take out using characters with backstabs, especially Renee the Rogue. Before Humphrey strikes, dash to his backside and backstab the hell out of him, he’s dead in seconds. With the Warrior, I use the “stride” from my power attack to act as a dash to get to his backside before he strikes, and hack him to bits from the back. If he does his “highjump” attack, when he lands his shockwave will always travel in 8 directions in the “+ x” directions, so if you back off and stand at about “1 o’clock” or “11 o’clock” from where he lands, you’ll dodge the shockwave.

Amaranth: Amaranth is one of the hardest challenges in the game, in my opinion. A significant step up in difficulty from Humphrey. The biggest tip about fighting Amaranth is to kill the enemies he spawns as they spawn, as if you don’t you’ll be quickly overwhelmed dealing with them. The Warrior is great here because Amaranth spawns weak enemies like Royal Custos’ which can be killed with one charged strike of a Skullhack, making them easy to control. Amaranth has two attack patterns – one long charging attack immediately following a teleport, and 3 back-to-back-to-back dashing sword strikes. After each of these attacks Amaranth is left vulnerable for a few seconds, which makes fighting him using backstabbing characters easier since you can backstab him into oblivion while he’s vulnerable. The enemies he spawns are a little more difficult to control using those characters, however.

The Bearer: There’s a simple trick to easily beating The Bearer: Bring two Aged Hourglasses with you into the fight. Once the fight starts, stand at the end of your melee striking distance and activate an Aged Hourglass. This will nullify The Bearer’s all-magical attack arsenal and allow you to stand there and just blast away at him without worry of taking damage. It never takes more than the amount of time for two Aged Hourglasses to expire for any character to kill The Bearer. Backstabbers can finish The Bearer in seconds using this technique.

The Shadow: While there’s no “cheat” to quickly beating The Shadow, there are a few critical techniques. Taking out enemies as they spawn is priority #1. This seems simple, but the first time I ever played the final boss I failed to take out all the spawned enemies between rounds of The Shadow appearing, and I was overwhelmed and killed. The enemies spawned are a handful for any character, so don’t waste precious seconds getting in those extra couple of hits to the Shadow while enemies are spawning. Most enemies have a 1-2 second long charge-up for their attacks, and hanging back to continue getting hits on the Shadow until it fades away allows the enemies time to charge up. Attack them as soon as they spawn, that way they’re dealt with early and you don’t have to worry about fighting them while dodging The Shadow’s “raining fire” attack that starts a few seconds before The Shadow appears.
Also be mindful of item drops during Shadow fights. There are a lot of items dropped by enemies during Shadow fights which can be easy to ignore during all the frantic activity. Using the Warrior for example, fallen enemies drop throwing axes. You can usually pick up nearly a full inventory of throwing axes with each wave of enemies, which I then use to deal 9 extremely quick hits to the Shadow as soon as it appears.



I've reached the 10,000 character per post limit, I hope it’s been helpful!

 

Have to go back and beat the labyrinth with the remaining chars. It's that DR2C is taking my gaming time. Lol

 

Just a LITTLE short of Quazonk... LOL

So here is my 1st seriously attempt at joining Quazonk at the top. I made 15th on iOS with 175 floors...but I died due to a mistake I made, not because I ran out of resources or anything else.

https://imgur.com/gallery/TVLuy

I started recognizing rooms, and thought the one I was in didn't have the Insdiators (the incredibly annoying ones that spawn behind you) I was playing with fire being one shot and I knew it, but I thought I was clear... le sigh. I'm confident that I can do 999, even when health pets start fading. I was using Ghelid, Lexicon and Fulgurite, for those that are interested. I personally think that setup is pretty much a requisite for Endless, you need the AoE DPS of Lex and the CC/Projecilte Management of Gheilds. Also, doing three damage per PA with Ful is amazing, you can kill Thorned Eximuses (the ones with 4 legs that fire 2-7 projectiles) in two charged shots! Also, being able to pull tough rooms with the Forked PA is freakin vital. Anyway, just though you'd like to know I'll be up there with you eventually Quaz. =]

 

Double Post, please see below

 

Great post, and honestly, the only thing I didn't already know or do is use Blythes axes to lure foes.

I. Am. Such. An. Idiot

I make posts all time on Reddit about how losing the range on Abbie's Power Attack is CRIPPLING, I can't believe I didn't make that corelation to Blythes axes.
Wow. Lol, that makes a lot of sense. One of Abbie's greatest strengths is door camping and drawing foes... I was using Bylthes axes to kill things slightly quicker. Also, I was starting to branch out and use the Magebane Gaunts to destroy projectiles, if I found those gloves. That was actually my preferred methodology for a while, but I can instantly see using them to poke the hive is a much better use for them. Thsts pretty much the lynchpin that I was missing, I can already see how much health I'd save being able to play conservately and drawing out individuals and small groups instead of going in and trying to find gaps and openings while circling, which is how I was doing it. Easy to see how your number one dude.

 

I can agree with your optimal Mage build on Endless. Though I prefer to use a Blazeweave instead to use it against high-HP enemies that can't simply be knocked out of their attack, and for conserving my Earth Orb in case I need to use a penetrating attack against bunched enemies.

Glad to see this game still getting attention here. While I'm not a big fan of Endless, I can see the appeal of hardcore players trying to reach the end. For me, I was satisfied getting to 100 floors and recklessly running the rest until death. I simply don't have the skill, endurance and patience for 900 more floors.

 

Question on Pets

I'm in an Endless run (Floor 62), shooting for 999f but we will see, lol. I have my preferred loadout, at lvl II. By some maricle, I also found a DemonSkull on Floor 2. Crazysauce. He is seriously strong, with those AoE blasts coming often and hitting as hard as Abbie's standard attack. Is it worth it to get a health Regen pet? Due mainly to the DemonSkulls badassness, I was able to go from floor 26 to 47 with all three Statue Buffs without getting hit once. He actually saved them twice, once shooting a Royal Indisidiator as it spawned behind me, and doing the same to a Super Theif. He might be what helps me go all the way, I went 175 last attempt.
Another thing: I came across a River Duck last floor, but I left it, because it's early still but I also have 4 HPots, and have found at least 9 so far. Seriously lucky run. I started drinking one, and picking it up before I left the floor, even if I have full health. Am I being superstitious or does that somehow influence more HPots to drop?

 

Rocketcat I love you guys but if I don't get this update soon, I'm going to starve to death somehow.

 

WILL AUGUST 2017 BE THE MONTH - stay tuned

Update: Nah

 

WILL SEPTEMBER 2017 BE THE MONTH - Stay tuned

Update: Nah

 

WILL OCTOBER 2017 BE THE MONTH - Stay tuned

Update: Nah

 

Nah.

 

WILL NOVEMBER 2017 BE THE MONTH - Stay tuned

Update: Nah