About preparations and purists

[HexaDoken]

"Do today's heroes truly have any character, or are they just riding on the coat-tails of a swollen Kingdom? Let's find out!"

When this quest to defeat Den of Danger with Purist appeared, I kinda laughed in it's face, seeing as how about 90% of my runs have been Purist, and that's including much harder regions. But that made me think a bit. I use preparations rarely, if ever. What about you?

Do you rely on Kingdom preps, or you just run Purist everywhere? Are you making use of the awesome and slightly overpowered Locker, or just standart kingdom preps? Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

(Also, on a completely unrelated note: there's been that Guild Expansion quest sticking around my quest list for a bit less than forever, and during this forever, I have come no closer to figuring out what gives and what does one do with it. I guess it's time for me to ask on forums and find out)

[JayPlaysIndieGames]

I usually go all or none with the preps. Either I prep everything I can that will give me the greatest advantage or if I am specifically trying for purist I prep nothing. The only thing I very rarely prep is the gods (though I am warming up to pactmaker)

[Dreamdancer]

I mainly go with preps (apart from the runs where i want to get the purist badge, but this is rarely). Preps make life considerably easier. But in the last runs i got the impression, that i could probably use fewer preps (after killing the first boss in a hard dungeon and seeing that one has enough resources to kill the second one without needing Whupaz, but always prepping it...)
Regarding Gods preps: Early i went nearly all the time with four altars, but nowadays i mostly skip the gods preps.

Think when i will start a new kingdom (when the game will finally be released), i won't go as heavy with preps. But skipping them altogether? I don't know, if one has the purist badge, Bet-On-Boss will help to get more gold. Similar Midas Gloves are nice for gold grinding. In that sense, think Bet-On-Boss will be my standard prep

[Darvin]

Depends on the dungeon and the class I'm running. I'm more likely to bring preps with classes that have weak early games (looking at you, Fighter) or some very outstanding weaknesses (Rogue or Monk) that can become very annoying if you can't get the right combos running.

[dislekcia]

[Darvin]

[HexaDoken]

It's interesting how in Alpha days I've went faithless almost always(unless Pactmaker spawns), and now in Beta days I almost never finish a dungeon without a religion. Though, also interestingly enough, it's not uncommon for me to join a religion and then never grab a single boon.

I never really hunt for medals, unless I have a quest that wants me to hunt for a medal(goddamnit witch). The only reason for me to go Purist is because I just want to go Purist. I always liked the randomness of the dungeon, and me having no idea which items, gods and glyphs I'll end up using; preparations take a part of this randomness away, which is why I just choose to not grab them. Not to mention that some preps are plain overpowered(cough balanced dagger from locker and cough magnet fire)

My account is roughly three weeks old, I guess? I have about 20 dungeons unlocked total, so I think this does qualify as "late-game". Alchemist, bank, witch and Bezar are level 2, while all other buildings are level 3.

It's worth nothing that this quest is shown in "quests pending" list wherever I go, be it any dungeon run, challenges, or even puzzles. Wherever I go, it's there, looking at me.

Kinda creepy.

[Lujo]

I almost never go purist - the Bet on Boss prep might as well be a Token as far as I'm concerned.

However, the either nothing or prepped to the gills thing is not really my style (I'd be curious to hear what sidestepper does ).

I sort of always casually prep enough to destroy pretty much anything wihout thinking about it because there are gods in the game that come with no real disadvatages to prepping them. And if I'm looking for gold, I'm doing the only compromise between the game and me in letting the game choose where I go by picking up either the PQI or the Flaming run. Then for most of the sub vicious stuff, unless I feel like it, I either prep components for a combo I want to try out, a hard counter for any annoying PQI restriction (say a screwy class/badge), any of the "no penalty" utility gods (Binlor for mazes, Mystera or EM for spellcaster, GG because why not, don't necessarily take advantage of them at all), or just some utility or Bet on Boss.

Runs I really want to speed through just for the gold / completion, I go Codex + EM.

If this looks retarded, keep in mind that I generally see the runs as either "speed through", "try weird stuff out" or "challenge". First category I prep just enough to be guaranteed the paycheck but don't see anything I want to think about too hard, second category I go weird combos and untested stuff + backup overpowered utility god for paycheck, and third category is vicious PQI and VVGT where I either underprep on purpose or go full retarded but it's actually difficult.

And preping one random bit of cheeze has historically given me great opportunities to try risky stuff most other pro's wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole Drac halfling CP monsters FTW

(Though, if the game actually was balanced in certain regards, I'm not sure I'd be doing well at it, really...)

[TigerKnee]

All-in or none/EXTREMELY cheap.

All-in when you need to win to unlock stuff and you don't care about monetary expeditures or just for the heck of it when you want to stomp people and blow off steam. None/low for gold farming (well, technically Bet on Boss is a prep but...)

I think "middle" level investment of preps is probably the worst thing you can do. If you die with 0 preps, big deal, you lost nothing but time. If you go in loaded to the gills with preps, you'll almost never die unless you're trying to tackle Vicious dungeons. If you go in "mid-range", death isn't inconsequential in terms of gold loss, and yet you're not "insured" enough against losing the dungeon.

[Lujo]

Sure, but without mid investments it's quite impossible to test/try out stuff in a reasonable timeframe. Plus, you can still screw up so it keeps you on your toes.