Hello everybody and hello to the devs of Iratus!

I just encountered my first elite pack in the dwarfen dungeon (the dungeon after the first one). At round 3 they killed my first minion and i barely scratched them.

I am still on tutorial difficulty (i think) unless the game changes difficulty automatically upon finshing the tutorial (i didn't check). I had two level 3 and two level 5 minions, all made of grey materials.

This encounter was very very frustrating, at least for me. I thought: „Hey, i am still on easy mode, this should be do-able.“ Well, it wasn't. At all. Not a chance! Extremely frustrating. Then consider the elite packs later on in the game, in my mind, this will only get worse. Much much worse. The thought of that makes me not want to play, which is sad because i actually really want to.


=== Regarding elite packs: a warning would have been nice.
Something along the lines: „This is your first encounter with an elite pack on difficulty „X“, be prepared or vanish forever. Your minions should be at least level 3 and made out of green materials to stand a chance against this foe. Do you wish to proceed? < Yes / No >?“

I know this is a problem since you can't backtrack in case you don't wish to engage the elite pack, but i am not a dev, maybe they can think of a way to get ouf of it should you choose to reconsider.


=== Regarding permadeath: i'd love the option to „buyback“ minions.
I know this is a hardcore game, problem is i am not a hardcore gamer but i still want to play it. Maybe add an option at the start of a new game? < Softcore (with option to buyback) / Hardcore (no buyback) >


=== Regarding „The Grind“: i'd love the option to just go grind.
Just explore a random dungeon, no boss at the end, everything else is just like a normal dungeon at the particular difficulty you started your campaign at, including elite packs of course. I think it would be cool if you were given that option to just go out there, gather materials of all sorts and XP then go continue in your „challenge dungeon“ (the one you're supposed to finish to beat the game in the end). Maybe you could add this option, again, to the start of a new campaign? „Softcore (ability to go grind) / Hardcore (no grinding)“.

I can actually see myself starting on softcore then switching to hardcore later once i know how everything works, more or less, and i actually know what i am doing.

I don't expect anything to change, when has it ever?
But i'd love to play this game, i just can't as it is right now and i don't even need to recommend this game to any of my friends, they're more or less like me. They love to play games but they don't have an awful lot of time and they are not hardcore gamers either. Add to that a (very very) frustrating component in a game and i am pretty sure i can tell you exactly what is going to happen. Uninstall, never touch again, forget about it altogether.

Don't take this the wrong way please. You got something here. A cool looking game with addictive, deep mechanics and a very cool protagonist (good voice actor btw!). I think this game can have a bright future and i hope it will! Unfortunately it's not for me at the moment. I'll try and keep playing for a little while longer and just ignore elite packs along the way for now.

Cheers and best wishes to the devs of Iratus! =)

Hello there,

i finished the game on "cakewalk" and i am now just before the Pyromancer on "More Pain" trying to get one last Dhampir. I just encountered a pack which i cannot defeat (playing with a stress damage based party).

My opponentrs are: 1 elite shadow elf, 1 dhampir, 1 dual sword elf, 1 elfen archer (insane aimed shot ability 300% dmg, you HAVE to take care of this one at once or one of your minions dies!)

NPC's in this game simply deal way too much damage, overall! It's insane really. (and i'm only on "More Pain" at the moment)
I can manage to get to round 3, that's the time it takes to strip them of their wards and do a little bit of stress damage, but after that .. the dying starts. They practically lost little to no stress and 3 of my 4 guys are near death, below 15% hitpoints. I've tried this 7 or 8 times (or more, i lost count) for now and i realize i have to start over, do it all over again. Very frustrating. I have absolutely no chance against this pack and there is only one elite among them.

I don't need to create new or other minions (i don't have enough materials anyway) because they would all be level 1 and i don't have enough brains to level them up.

Up to this point it was good fun with a few hard to very hard battles in between but i could manage. This is impossible at the moment. I have to take my backup team (physical based damage) in to take out at least 1 or 2 of them before i can try again with my main team. Now if you say this is the way it's supposed to be played, ok cool.

Problem is there are another 2 dungeon levels after this one. Not sure how long one can sustain such a tactic, throwing in minions after minion to soften up the opponent.

Anyway, just wanted to let you know. I'm not giving up, for now.
Cheers and best wishes! =)

Without knowing how you built your party, what upgrades you have on your minions, what move combinations you are using etc, it is really hard to know what you are doing wrong. Once you get past cakewalk, it is really important that you have a party with some synergy in their moves. Once you get setup, the 2nd and 3rd dungeons can be pretty easy on 'More Pain'. To simply say that the game is too hard though, because your first and second attempts were failures (granted, from your posts you may have tried more, I don't know), makes it sound like you are looking for a game that you can't lose in regardless of what you do. I suspect this latest battle is being lost due to mistakes made much earlier in the game. There are some playthroughs on YouTube, and a lot of strategy dicussion on the Steam forums for the game, which might help you get a better party together.

Hello Bhelogan,

thank you for your feedback. You're right in saying that i probably made some mistakes much earlier in the game, no doubt about that. I definitely need to do more research when it comes to synergies overall (move, skills, minions etc).

I am not looking for a game that i can't lose in, what would be the point? But i think the game could be more lenient on the lower two difficulty levels, since it's kinda deep and complex in its mechanics considering everything you have to think of (abilities, upgrades, minions, movement and all of that in synergy with one another). I absolutely want the game to be hard on setting 3 or 4 (difficulty-wise) and you absolutely have to make most of what you do synergize to be able to beat the game (or even just one encounter) in the end.

There are four difficulty levels for Iratus right now: Cakewalk (easy?!), More Pain (normal?!), Good Always Wins (hard?!) and Endless Rise (very hard?!), plus there are two more dungoen levels we haven't seen yet. If you're playing on "More Pain (normal?!)" i still think the NPCs just do too much damage overall.

I finished the game on "More Pain" now but i struggled, i had to thin the enemy lines with my physical based damage team which consisted of 2 level 5 skellies (made tanky) and 2 level 5 mummies (made tanky + increased ultimate ability stress damage) several times. The Pyromancer wasn't a problem at all. It was a breeze with my physical team and the mummy "stress ultimate", but the way to him was hard - very hard in the sense that i had to take my physical team in a couple times to kill at least some of the enemies before i could take my main team in (I really wanted to beat the game with a stress damage based party). Probably a niche issue i had in that very moment just because i needed that last dhampir. So, basically i made it harder for myself than it needed to be just because i wanted that dhampir to switch sides.

In hindsight, you're absolutely right! The errors made were all mine, i can't fault the game for being what it is. I did something wrong but i'm learning, slowly (i hope). Again, I think at least in the lower 2 difficulties the damage of the NPCs could be a bit lower than what it is at the moment. If i am the only one complaning about this, then by all means ignore my complaint. From what i am reading in the steam reviews i don't think i am the only one though.

If you would be so kind and point me to a strategy guide / strategy tutorial on youtube (or the steam forum) you think is worth checking out or which is downright superb, please. It would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers and thanks in advance. =)

I apologize if my above post was a little harsh, certainly was not my intent.

Anyway, for More Pain, I followed the setup Rhapsody uses here: (takes a few episodes to go through everything)

watch?v=IeJDP5rntbU&list=PLvHIlDyLzr_WOPkg14wtum8RgH53FnwwZ&index=18

I had to have a backup of each unit in the arena training, but by the 3rd dungeon, things were rolling with ease.

Although I can't vouch for I personally, the steam guide here walks through Good Always Wins:

sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1879266682

(apparently I am not allowed to post links at this moment, but you can put the youtube and steam URLs in yourself)

Heya Bhelogan,

thanks for the tips! Rhapsody's videos are quite helpful even though i find the comments to his videos even more valuable. Good stuff nonetheless!

No need to apologize. You spoke your mind in a respectful and honest manner, which is actually quite welcome. I didn't think it was harsh at all, so don't worry about it. =)

I don't know how to look for a Steam ID, so i haven't found that "Good Always Wins" guide yet, but i'll keep searching for it.

Getting better at the game here, also started to play Darkest Dungeon to see how things are in a game in that genre that's been around for a while.

Cheers and best wishes.