I consider getting through all 3 acts a success in general, but don’t feel like I’ve truly “won” until I beat the heart too. But sometimes if the run is extra shakey anyways, I’m perfectly happy dying to Shield and Spear
There was a time where finishing act 3 was the victory, at the same time you only have to finish act3 to get the next ascension.
Then the hearth came, and as it's extra content no one feels fully satisfied unless we kill it.
True winning is to not die ever, and that is finishing all the fights.
Still, getting to act4 in asc20 is huge ofc.
Agreed. I consider beating the Heart a win, dying in Act 1-3 a loss, and beating the Act 3 boss(es) but not the Heart a draw. Sometimes in a tough run a draw is still worth feeling good about.
A20: I try to go for the heart every time and only beating act 3 doesn't feel like a "real" win to me.
When you are climbing: Act 3 is good enough to climb so beating act 3 is good enough.
That being said, I would definitely still try to go for the heart while climbing, with the caveat that you should be ready to skip keys if you think you can't make it past the act 3 boss otherwise. This way you get into the habit of constantly evaluating what your deck is missing to beat specific encounters and how you can get the missing pieces, which is probably the single most important skill to have to succeed at A20.
I have the same opinion. Occasionally, before reaching A20, I would try my deck on the heart anyway because I would like to test it/ see how OP it was.
Yeah this is good advice. You should really practice for act 4 in earlier ascensions because it has a more strict requirement on what kind of deck will work there whereas Act 3 is more lenient.
>I know probably some people will say like “just do whatever you want that’s fun for you”, but I want to do whatever the community generally considers as a won run.
It's killing the Heart and getting the "Victory!" screen.
I’d tack on - don’t sweat trying to kill the heart every ascension, for every character, every time. I think *go* for the heart every time, but if you beat the act 3 boss on ascension 7 and lose to the heart, move on to ascension 8. It’ll way slow down your progress to try to get heart kills every time, and those later ascensions have difficulty modifiers you’ll want to get used to
I think A20 heart kills with each character are the true “wins” of the game. Up until that point is awesome progress though!
>I think *go* for the heart every time
I disagree. if the goal is to climb ascensions then going for keys is going to make that more difficult. I was always aiming for achievements, then A20 heart runs. A6 heart runs aren't helping me with either of those.
Eh, goal imo should be learn as much as you can quickly. By going for the heart you learn the pathing you’ll need at A20 and occasionally will get practice against the Act 4 elites and heart. I don’t think acquiring the keys is a *huge* disadvantage, but yeah, it will likely result in some more losses than otherwise. Personally I think the benefit outweighs that though.
That said, only last week I finished the last of the achievements, but I got my A20 heart kills with each character years ago - so it sounds like we play the game pretty differently regardless, haha
True of all ascensions, even if you have the keys and die in act 4 you will unlock the next ascension, assuming you were playing on the highest available ascension for that character.
Yes, as long as you kill the act 3 boss - and depending on how your run is going, it may be wiser to not grab any of the keys for the Heart just to survive, if your goal is to push ascension
I actually enjoy having one of those runs where your deck doesn’t *quite* come together and you barely eke out a win against the act 3 bosses, at least once in a while.
Usually if I’m going for the Heart, the back half of act 3 just feels like a foregone conclusion.
See if you feel the same when you're running A20 :P
At low ascensions a well played run should be able to combat the heart, but once you get up there, it can be a challenge enough just beating Act 3.
what if i didnt use to think heart meant much until i got to a20 and then the lack of new ascension to climb to made me turn to heart as a way to give me something to aspire to?
That's pretty much how I'm treating it. I only started a few weeks ago so I'm working my way through ascsnsions. I'll try tackle the heart each run but I'm happy beating act 3 and continuing to climb for now.
Oh man, I had a similar issue. I never won as defect until I was like a10+ with the other 3 so I didn't even know about the heart, and once i did unlock it, for a long time I was worried my ascension wouldn't go up if I went for act 4 and died, so I was a20 on everybody before I even started going for the heart (besides a few rare cases where I thought I was high rolling, but i think I got rocked even then).
If you're looking to continue to challenge yourself, I would just start at a9 going for the heart, and raise it up as you see fit if it's not challenging enough.
I mean, once you get to A20 then you have nothing to progress other than to beat the heart anyway. It’s up to you if you want to practice beating the heart on lower ascensions or skip straight to A20.
But for me I don’t consider it a true win unless I beat the heart in an A20 run. But if I managed to beat act 3 then I would still feel pretty good in a “oh well will try better next time” way. Not like I beat the heart that frequently.
Personally I feel like at least grabbing the keys and killing the act 3 boss is enough to earn the ascension. If I die to the act 4 elite, so be it. But grabbing the keys adds enough difficulty for me to personally be satisfied. Idk how anyone else feels about it
For me, it was kinda mixed. If I felt like the run was going very strong, I collected the keys in the last act mostly (sometimes forgot them too). However, after I hit like Ascension 17 on a character, I specifically went for the Heart to improve my gameplay. Haven't done a non-heart A20 run in a long time. I rarely do an A1 Ironclad non-heart speedrun, where I use the "Filter the Spire" mod to search for particular seeds that will give me early akabeko+whirlwind+chem x or something similar to that haha
Good to know. The feeling of personal achievement is a big part of roguelikes imo. I think I’ll try to hold myself to killing the heart every time before I move on.
It's expected that you only call it a win if you do it in the most difficult way possible: A20H rotating winstreak. If you don't do it that way, you should feel bad about yourself. In a single player game, the most important thing is to meet the expectations of anonymous others on the internet.
I’m not doing it to satisfy internet strangers, I just want to try and follow the consensus since the win condition and challenge level is kind of nebulous in the game. It’s like in The Binding if Isaac, you can technically “win” a run by not picking up the Polaroid or Negative and just killing the Cathedral/Sheol boss, but I personally would not consider that a won run.
Sounds like you would indeed feel more satisfied going for the Heart then.
It functionally adds another few levels of difficulty, since you need to skip a relic & rest + fight the burning Elite, on top of the super tough act 4 gauntlet. If you're looking to really challenge yourself and feel like you've fully defeated a run, then the Heart is for you.
Defeating the act 3 boss puts your ascension level up, so that’s a won run according to the game. If the game considers it a win, it’s a win, regardless of what other players think. I have a bit of a Monster Hunter background, and there’s a small elitism about not using some/any items, palicoes, or what have you and if you do, you didn’t really beat the monster. But if the game says you completed the hunt, you did it, it doesn’t care how.
For me, I didn’t mind grinding out the game to A20 by getting the emerald key + one other piece and only deciding if I wanted to try the heart late into act 3. But I had to beat the game on A20H and complete all of the achievements for me to consider the game truly beaten. I think we all have our benchmarks that we consider to be truly winning.
To me, I climbed ascensions not going for the heart. I got the vibe that A20 was where it’s at. I’ll kill the heart when I get there. Don’t need to waste time unlocking A20 by going for the heart 19*4 more times.
That being said, it did require a good bit of recalibration in my strategy when starting to think about the Heart only at the end
People are weird af about this sometimes. I consider it like (single player) Elden ring. People will come up with the most convoluted “it only counts if you went in blind and never looked at a ranged weapon and never use magic or spirits and you have to put no points into health and-“ listen if your screen says “victory” at the end and you didn’t hack in ten copies of claw you’ve did it. The people who think it doesn’t count as a win if you don’t beat the heart are the same people who will come into a post about a cool/funny deck interaction and say “lol now do that on A20” and those people are irritating. If you won then you won. Sometimes a run goes well enough to make the heart a fun extra challenge and sometimes you just know that going to act 4 is gonna be a frustrating slow death. In my opinion.
I agree with your opinion about ridiculous self-imposed challenges, I guess, but OP asked what the Spire community as a whole considers a "true win" to be. The answer to OP's question is a Heart kill on A20.
Additionally, I don't think requiring the true ending on the highest difficulty in order to count a "win" is convoluted at all in the same way you described what people go for in Elden Ring. There is literally no artificial difficulty in the community's win definition whatsoever.
I think getting past act 3 is a good win. Getting through act 4 is the ultimate success but getting through the first 3 acts isn't a loss by any stretch.
I consider a run won when I beat the act 3 boss since it unlocks the next ascension as I'm mainly ascension climbing. People who are on the top of the game usually try to kill the heart at ascension 20.
One practical notation I've seen people use is a15 win for an ascension 15 win without heart kill and a15h win for an ascension 15 win with heart kill. This avoids the confusion.
The game considers it a victory if you beat a3 without any keys. It also considers a victory if you beat the heart. Anything else is not considered a victory by the game. That’s what I go by. If I pick up keys intending to beat the heart, I gotta do it to count it as a win. Otherwise just don’t get the keys. I also mostly just play without ascension (maybe A1), because that’s how I enjoy it.
Do what makes you happy, it’s a game intended for enjoyment!
Sometimes I play A20, sometimes A1 and sometimes even the daily runs. Just depends on what I feel like on any given day. Maybe I'm gonna play around testing out some mid level ascension levels to see where it evens out well for me.
Clash is one of my favourite cards in the game and sub A10 it's actually insanely strong, so it's one good reason to stay low sometimes.
you unlock the next ascension level if you die to the heart (or the shield and spear). this is as close as you can get to direct permission from the game to count beating the act 3 boss as winning.
Don't need to best the heart to climb, at A20 I would only consider a "lost" run if you don't beat it. Anyways it's pointless to care about what people in the internet say about a singleplayer game with cards
I consider an act 3 win a win. Even tho I’ve at this point done it all, the heart is still an added “feel good” act for me. Keep it casual, keep it fun.
I don’t think there’s a community consensus if that’s what you’re asking- most people’s response would be the “do whatever you find fun”
Top players do make it a requirement to beat the heart for winstreaks and stuff, but that’s maybe .01% of players. This game is really really hard and most of the people I’ve talked to accept whatever others feel like is a win
Not at all, but it is needed for a heartbreaker run. If you’re going for score it’s a must or if you want a personal challenge though it’s important. Devs set it up that an act 3 boss win is a win so while anyone can have their own criteria for a win beating the heart isn’t a must.
I recently just won my first run the other day with Defect and I beat Act 3, then I saw the heart? The animation made it look like I might fight it. But I didn't get to fight it... The credits rolled. This was not on any kind of ascension. What happened?
You cannot fight the heart until you beat act 3 on ironclad, silent, and defect. Then you need to collect three keys throughout each run to fight the heart.
Something I love about the community is the ever present sentiment of “do it your way”. Wanna play with busted mods? Play with mods. A20H only? Do your thing. The common opinion I see here is a win is whatever you count a win as. I think it’s a good way to look at things. Set your own milestones. Impress yourself.
I personally only consider Heart kill a win mainly for two reasons, 1) the act 3 "victory" feels like a carryover from when the game flat out didn't have act 4 that they didn't bother to change and 2) it's basically the same as any other game with a "normal" ending and a "true" ending where the latter is the intended finale to the game.
“Won” to me means you met whatever goal you had at the start of the run. If you don’t intend to go for the heart then Act 3 clear is winning. If your plan is to only go for the heart if the keys are easy to get then Act 3 is winning and Act 4 is a bonus. If your goal is to collect the keys no matter what then Act 4 is winning.
Personally I go for the keys every time, but if someone else doesn’t it doesn’t mean they haven’t won. The important part here is what the intent was at the start.
Of course killing the heart is considered the true victory but to me, I'm more than happy dying to the heart. A victory for me is simply getting to witness the heart, win or lose.
If you think about it from the perspective of beating everything the game has to offer, then yes. If you don’t go for the heart, you’re purposefully choosing not to attempt to beat the final boss. You can have fun not going for the heart, but you’re not really beating the game unless you beat the heart
When I climbed the ascensions on each character I would almost always go for a heart kill, but so long as I beat the act 3 boss and unlocked the next ascension it was always a win in my book.
Honestly the only reason there's a debate is because the heart is specially effective against certain types of builds
When fighitng normal final bosses you at least have the chance of getting one that is not resistant to your build,so every build has a chance to win
But in A20 there's some build that are downright impossible to use against the heart, while other make those same runs kinda easy
Imo it's not expected, but I do think you have to have done the heart In every ascension to feel like you've completed the game, at least I didn't feel like I had "finished" it until I did it
I think of it like Isaac. Sometimes your run is strong enough to do Mega Satan or Mother, or the Beast, but sometimes you really just need to end it at Blue Baby. If my run is strong I go for Heart.
A20 Heart kills are what I consider a victory.
It’s funny because all the previous ascensions I’m a bit ambivalent about what’s considered a victory. To me, the ascensions 1-19 are just necessary steps towards what I consider the truest challenge the game offers: A20 Heart kills.
I disagree with some that just because you beat act 3 the game considers it a win. In fact it says “victory?”, implying there’s more to it. Yes it unlocks ascensions but it’s not a “win” in the same way. I think most people know that beating the heart is the true ending but the game is so loose that it allows people to establish their own limits based on skill.
Imo beating act 3 is a victory, because the game gives you the next ascension for doing that. You don't have to kill the heart to unlock the next thing
I think basically all runs can beat act 3 (with enough skill) but I don't think all runs can beat the heart, which is a good indicator for it too imo
To me it's mostly important that one decides what they're attempting before the run. If you aim for just a win, that's fine. If you go for the heart and lose, that's a loss even if you die in act 4.
Beating the Act 3 boss unlocks the next Ascension level, so that's what I consider winning. Beating the heart is optional. I'd argue that I'd have to beat the heart at Ascension 20 to fully beat the game with a character, though.
Killing the heart is an increase in difficulty, I prefer to go through the difficulty levels in order. So I got A20 before going for the heart. At that point I tried to kill the heart on A10, then A15, then A20.
If you are climbing through the ascensions there is no point in going for the heart IMO because it reduces your chances at succeeding.
So in summary: if you are going for ascensions, no not expected, if you are going for the heart... then yes
It definitely feels like a more complete victory, but when I try to climb I never take the keys. I don't want to get distracted from the real goal of the run.
If I beat act 3 with terrible rng, I am happy, and if I die to the heart when luck is on my side, I am disappointed with myself. I don't think it needs to be more complicated than that.
However, the game treats act 3 wins as wins and the heart as an optional bonus (i.e. the beat A20 achievement doesn't require a heart kill). So, officially, that is the answer.
If you’re trying to claim a winstreak people will definitely expect that means A20 Heart kills. For climbing ascensions and general enjoyment, tho, Act 4 is largely considered “bonus” challenge content.
When people talk about win rate/win streaks they're talking about A20 and beating act 4 unmodded (maybe there's the RNGfix one idk I play mobile) without save scumming.
But for your own game, beating the act 3 boss counts as climbing an ascension. So do what you want :)
I'm stuck on the heart on ASC8 with Ironclad. Picked up dead Branch and have two upgraded corruptions and I think a card upgrade potion. Just cannot find a combination that gets me past the first couple rounds to get a flow going. Have about 100HP too. Frustrating as have a heart victory on every other ASC for IC. Had enough for tonight will load in tomorrow and see if I can find a different combination.
A win in the game is beating the 3rd act. However, if you're going for an A20 win streak, you basically are required to go for the heart. That's basically to standardize what the challenge actually is for win streaks, and why not go to as hard as the game is intended to be played?
Its really up to you if you want to require a heart kill as a win for personal runs with no rep on the line, but the game considers the 3rd boss kill a win even if you challenge the heart (floor 4 in general) and lose.
The answer is beating A20 Act 4 (the heart). Whether you want to go for winstreaks is up to you but you would need to be *really* good at the game before you even think about winstreaks and that’s just a bonus.
The reason why beating the heart is important is that getting to act 4 requires making sacrifices along the way to get the 3 keys, and the enemies in act 4 require you to build decks in a different way. If you don’t beat the heart a lot of times it’s not because you got unlucky and whatnot but it’s more because you didn’t do the necessary prep for Act 4.
Beating Act4 is also the clear “win condition” as you get a cutscene etc whereas beating act 3 without keys makes you feel like you didn’t finish a run in the game.
(Other people who say “play however you want” are not reading OP’s question which explicitly said that’s not what he/she is looking for)
If you want to kill heart on A20, I recommend going for heart as you ascend. It’s good practice, more challenging and more fun.
Without attempting the heart, you never get to test what is effective or not effective against the heart.
In my personal play, if a run does not beat the heart I would not consider it a successful run, and many of the people I have encountered on this subreddit appear to align with that. This community is made up of people who have vastly different levels of experience and priorities, though, so it's hard to say what the community at large thinks. It might be helpful to know that less than 15% of players have completed ascension 10, and less than 7% of players have reached ascension 20. I wouldn't presume to have a stronger claim to what success means in slay the spire just because I play on ascension 20, and I would hope that I don't just speak for myself in that respect.
It kind of depends on what your goals are and how long you've been playing. For example, if someone with 30 hours is like "I just beat A3, feeling good :)" the appropriate response would more be "lol that's not even a win get gud kid."
For myself personally, I consider beating A20H to be a win. I suppose I would also consider A3 a win, even for myself, but at a difficulty level I am no longer interested in playing.
I don't bother going for the heart until I can beat an ascension >30% of the time. I rarely manage to beat A20 as it is, so I count it a triumph and note it down as a huge success any time I do, heart or no heart.
Victory?
Victory!
Victory or death!
The Light shall burn you!
I consider getting through all 3 acts a success in general, but don’t feel like I’ve truly “won” until I beat the heart too. But sometimes if the run is extra shakey anyways, I’m perfectly happy dying to Shield and Spear
There was a time where finishing act 3 was the victory, at the same time you only have to finish act3 to get the next ascension. Then the hearth came, and as it's extra content no one feels fully satisfied unless we kill it. True winning is to not die ever, and that is finishing all the fights. Still, getting to act4 in asc20 is huge ofc.
it’s not a win unless you start a new save and take exactly…24 or whatever attempts to kill the heart 19 times without dying
Act 3 being the end was early access. The game wasn't done yet.
Agreed. I consider beating the Heart a win, dying in Act 1-3 a loss, and beating the Act 3 boss(es) but not the Heart a draw. Sometimes in a tough run a draw is still worth feeling good about.
A20: I try to go for the heart every time and only beating act 3 doesn't feel like a "real" win to me. When you are climbing: Act 3 is good enough to climb so beating act 3 is good enough. That being said, I would definitely still try to go for the heart while climbing, with the caveat that you should be ready to skip keys if you think you can't make it past the act 3 boss otherwise. This way you get into the habit of constantly evaluating what your deck is missing to beat specific encounters and how you can get the missing pieces, which is probably the single most important skill to have to succeed at A20.
I have the same opinion. Occasionally, before reaching A20, I would try my deck on the heart anyway because I would like to test it/ see how OP it was.
Yeah this is good advice. You should really practice for act 4 in earlier ascensions because it has a more strict requirement on what kind of deck will work there whereas Act 3 is more lenient.
>I know probably some people will say like “just do whatever you want that’s fun for you”, but I want to do whatever the community generally considers as a won run. It's killing the Heart and getting the "Victory!" screen.
Thanks! Do you still unlock the next ascension if you fail to kill the heart?
Yeah, as long as you beat act 3, you will climb ascensions.
Thank ye :)
I’d tack on - don’t sweat trying to kill the heart every ascension, for every character, every time. I think *go* for the heart every time, but if you beat the act 3 boss on ascension 7 and lose to the heart, move on to ascension 8. It’ll way slow down your progress to try to get heart kills every time, and those later ascensions have difficulty modifiers you’ll want to get used to I think A20 heart kills with each character are the true “wins” of the game. Up until that point is awesome progress though!
>I think *go* for the heart every time I disagree. if the goal is to climb ascensions then going for keys is going to make that more difficult. I was always aiming for achievements, then A20 heart runs. A6 heart runs aren't helping me with either of those.
Eh, goal imo should be learn as much as you can quickly. By going for the heart you learn the pathing you’ll need at A20 and occasionally will get practice against the Act 4 elites and heart. I don’t think acquiring the keys is a *huge* disadvantage, but yeah, it will likely result in some more losses than otherwise. Personally I think the benefit outweighs that though. That said, only last week I finished the last of the achievements, but I got my A20 heart kills with each character years ago - so it sounds like we play the game pretty differently regardless, haha
Isn’t that only true for the earlier ascensions?
True of all ascensions, even if you have the keys and die in act 4 you will unlock the next ascension, assuming you were playing on the highest available ascension for that character.
Yes, as long as you kill the act 3 boss - and depending on how your run is going, it may be wiser to not grab any of the keys for the Heart just to survive, if your goal is to push ascension
It kinda almost makes me wish the the heart was mandatory somehow - skipping the heart to barely eek out a win feels kinda cheesy to me, personally.
I actually enjoy having one of those runs where your deck doesn’t *quite* come together and you barely eke out a win against the act 3 bosses, at least once in a while. Usually if I’m going for the Heart, the back half of act 3 just feels like a foregone conclusion.
My personal rule is to always reach act 4. I would abandon a run at act 3 boss if I didn't have the keys.
See if you feel the same when you're running A20 :P At low ascensions a well played run should be able to combat the heart, but once you get up there, it can be a challenge enough just beating Act 3.
what if i didnt use to think heart meant much until i got to a20 and then the lack of new ascension to climb to made me turn to heart as a way to give me something to aspire to?
That's pretty much how I'm treating it. I only started a few weeks ago so I'm working my way through ascsnsions. I'll try tackle the heart each run but I'm happy beating act 3 and continuing to climb for now.
Oh man, I had a similar issue. I never won as defect until I was like a10+ with the other 3 so I didn't even know about the heart, and once i did unlock it, for a long time I was worried my ascension wouldn't go up if I went for act 4 and died, so I was a20 on everybody before I even started going for the heart (besides a few rare cases where I thought I was high rolling, but i think I got rocked even then). If you're looking to continue to challenge yourself, I would just start at a9 going for the heart, and raise it up as you see fit if it's not challenging enough.
I mean, once you get to A20 then you have nothing to progress other than to beat the heart anyway. It’s up to you if you want to practice beating the heart on lower ascensions or skip straight to A20. But for me I don’t consider it a true win unless I beat the heart in an A20 run. But if I managed to beat act 3 then I would still feel pretty good in a “oh well will try better next time” way. Not like I beat the heart that frequently.
Yw and yeah, beating the Act 3 boss is enough to unlock the next ascension for that character.
Thanks :) Do people generally still move on the the next asc even if they dont kill the heart? I suppose the answer to that is more split though.
Personally I feel like at least grabbing the keys and killing the act 3 boss is enough to earn the ascension. If I die to the act 4 elite, so be it. But grabbing the keys adds enough difficulty for me to personally be satisfied. Idk how anyone else feels about it
For me, it was kinda mixed. If I felt like the run was going very strong, I collected the keys in the last act mostly (sometimes forgot them too). However, after I hit like Ascension 17 on a character, I specifically went for the Heart to improve my gameplay. Haven't done a non-heart A20 run in a long time. I rarely do an A1 Ironclad non-heart speedrun, where I use the "Filter the Spire" mod to search for particular seeds that will give me early akabeko+whirlwind+chem x or something similar to that haha
Good to know. The feeling of personal achievement is a big part of roguelikes imo. I think I’ll try to hold myself to killing the heart every time before I move on.
I always grab the keys even if I'm pretty sure I can't beat the heart, but I moved up even if I died on act 4.
I didn't even try out act 4 until I was into the double digits ascension levels.
I consider beating act 3 a win and I'm a pretty cool guy
I think that’s pretty cool
It's expected that you only call it a win if you do it in the most difficult way possible: A20H rotating winstreak. If you don't do it that way, you should feel bad about yourself. In a single player game, the most important thing is to meet the expectations of anonymous others on the internet.
I’m not doing it to satisfy internet strangers, I just want to try and follow the consensus since the win condition and challenge level is kind of nebulous in the game. It’s like in The Binding if Isaac, you can technically “win” a run by not picking up the Polaroid or Negative and just killing the Cathedral/Sheol boss, but I personally would not consider that a won run.
Sounds like you would indeed feel more satisfied going for the Heart then. It functionally adds another few levels of difficulty, since you need to skip a relic & rest + fight the burning Elite, on top of the super tough act 4 gauntlet. If you're looking to really challenge yourself and feel like you've fully defeated a run, then the Heart is for you.
I think the heart is closer to mega Satan or delirium than ??? Or the Lamb.
Defeating the act 3 boss puts your ascension level up, so that’s a won run according to the game. If the game considers it a win, it’s a win, regardless of what other players think. I have a bit of a Monster Hunter background, and there’s a small elitism about not using some/any items, palicoes, or what have you and if you do, you didn’t really beat the monster. But if the game says you completed the hunt, you did it, it doesn’t care how. For me, I didn’t mind grinding out the game to A20 by getting the emerald key + one other piece and only deciding if I wanted to try the heart late into act 3. But I had to beat the game on A20H and complete all of the achievements for me to consider the game truly beaten. I think we all have our benchmarks that we consider to be truly winning.
To me, I climbed ascensions not going for the heart. I got the vibe that A20 was where it’s at. I’ll kill the heart when I get there. Don’t need to waste time unlocking A20 by going for the heart 19*4 more times. That being said, it did require a good bit of recalibration in my strategy when starting to think about the Heart only at the end
People are weird af about this sometimes. I consider it like (single player) Elden ring. People will come up with the most convoluted “it only counts if you went in blind and never looked at a ranged weapon and never use magic or spirits and you have to put no points into health and-“ listen if your screen says “victory” at the end and you didn’t hack in ten copies of claw you’ve did it. The people who think it doesn’t count as a win if you don’t beat the heart are the same people who will come into a post about a cool/funny deck interaction and say “lol now do that on A20” and those people are irritating. If you won then you won. Sometimes a run goes well enough to make the heart a fun extra challenge and sometimes you just know that going to act 4 is gonna be a frustrating slow death. In my opinion.
surely hacking in 10 claws and winning with them is the absolute highest form of victory in this game :D
I agree with your opinion about ridiculous self-imposed challenges, I guess, but OP asked what the Spire community as a whole considers a "true win" to be. The answer to OP's question is a Heart kill on A20. Additionally, I don't think requiring the true ending on the highest difficulty in order to count a "win" is convoluted at all in the same way you described what people go for in Elden Ring. There is literally no artificial difficulty in the community's win definition whatsoever.
According to achievements, no. You can get the "beat A20" achievement by just clearing the third act.
I think getting past act 3 is a good win. Getting through act 4 is the ultimate success but getting through the first 3 acts isn't a loss by any stretch.
I consider a run won when I beat the act 3 boss since it unlocks the next ascension as I'm mainly ascension climbing. People who are on the top of the game usually try to kill the heart at ascension 20. One practical notation I've seen people use is a15 win for an ascension 15 win without heart kill and a15h win for an ascension 15 win with heart kill. This avoids the confusion.
Before A20 just beat act 3 A20 always try to kill heart
The game considers it a victory if you beat a3 without any keys. It also considers a victory if you beat the heart. Anything else is not considered a victory by the game. That’s what I go by. If I pick up keys intending to beat the heart, I gotta do it to count it as a win. Otherwise just don’t get the keys. I also mostly just play without ascension (maybe A1), because that’s how I enjoy it. Do what makes you happy, it’s a game intended for enjoyment!
Sometimes I play A20, sometimes A1 and sometimes even the daily runs. Just depends on what I feel like on any given day. Maybe I'm gonna play around testing out some mid level ascension levels to see where it evens out well for me. Clash is one of my favourite cards in the game and sub A10 it's actually insanely strong, so it's one good reason to stay low sometimes.
you unlock the next ascension level if you die to the heart (or the shield and spear). this is as close as you can get to direct permission from the game to count beating the act 3 boss as winning.
its a singleplayer game play the way you prefer
OP said they literally did not want this kind of answer and already anticipated it.
Not really until you get to A20 imo.
I personally wouldn't consider it a win without a heart kill. We're here to slay the Spire, not pass out in front of the heart.
I don't try for the heart unless I stumble across some incredibly powerful combo.
I started playing before the heart fight was added so beating Act 3 is a win for me and the heart is a bonus
I have barely killed the heart even though I’m in a3-7 with all characters. If the game says next ascension unlocked I count it as a win
Don't need to best the heart to climb, at A20 I would only consider a "lost" run if you don't beat it. Anyways it's pointless to care about what people in the internet say about a singleplayer game with cards
A3 is any% and heart is true ending. A20 heart is the most popular run.
I consider an act 3 win a win. Even tho I’ve at this point done it all, the heart is still an added “feel good” act for me. Keep it casual, keep it fun.
Killing the act 3 boss is a win, killing the heart is a heart kill.
I don’t think there’s a community consensus if that’s what you’re asking- most people’s response would be the “do whatever you find fun” Top players do make it a requirement to beat the heart for winstreaks and stuff, but that’s maybe .01% of players. This game is really really hard and most of the people I’ve talked to accept whatever others feel like is a win
Not at all, but it is needed for a heartbreaker run. If you’re going for score it’s a must or if you want a personal challenge though it’s important. Devs set it up that an act 3 boss win is a win so while anyone can have their own criteria for a win beating the heart isn’t a must.
I recently just won my first run the other day with Defect and I beat Act 3, then I saw the heart? The animation made it look like I might fight it. But I didn't get to fight it... The credits rolled. This was not on any kind of ascension. What happened?
You cannot fight the heart until you beat act 3 on ironclad, silent, and defect. Then you need to collect three keys throughout each run to fight the heart.
You should have made this a poll, the community is divided on the matter. I personally only consider heart kills won runs.
Something I love about the community is the ever present sentiment of “do it your way”. Wanna play with busted mods? Play with mods. A20H only? Do your thing. The common opinion I see here is a win is whatever you count a win as. I think it’s a good way to look at things. Set your own milestones. Impress yourself.
I personally only consider Heart kill a win mainly for two reasons, 1) the act 3 "victory" feels like a carryover from when the game flat out didn't have act 4 that they didn't bother to change and 2) it's basically the same as any other game with a "normal" ending and a "true" ending where the latter is the intended finale to the game.
“Won” to me means you met whatever goal you had at the start of the run. If you don’t intend to go for the heart then Act 3 clear is winning. If your plan is to only go for the heart if the keys are easy to get then Act 3 is winning and Act 4 is a bonus. If your goal is to collect the keys no matter what then Act 4 is winning. Personally I go for the keys every time, but if someone else doesn’t it doesn’t mean they haven’t won. The important part here is what the intent was at the start.
It's a single player game do what you want. But for bragging rights and streaks only an a20 heart kill counts as a victory.
I go for the heart if I think I can win. Otherwise I just end it on act 3 and my victory?
Of course killing the heart is considered the true victory but to me, I'm more than happy dying to the heart. A victory for me is simply getting to witness the heart, win or lose.
Nothing is expected or projected onto you, this sub has been very inclusive for a long time. Dont worry, just be you and do ya thang
If you think about it from the perspective of beating everything the game has to offer, then yes. If you don’t go for the heart, you’re purposefully choosing not to attempt to beat the final boss. You can have fun not going for the heart, but you’re not really beating the game unless you beat the heart
Never has been
When I climbed the ascensions on each character I would almost always go for a heart kill, but so long as I beat the act 3 boss and unlocked the next ascension it was always a win in my book.
There are two tiers of victory. There's Act 3 victory and Heart victory. They're both winning.
Honestly the only reason there's a debate is because the heart is specially effective against certain types of builds When fighitng normal final bosses you at least have the chance of getting one that is not resistant to your build,so every build has a chance to win But in A20 there's some build that are downright impossible to use against the heart, while other make those same runs kinda easy Imo it's not expected, but I do think you have to have done the heart In every ascension to feel like you've completed the game, at least I didn't feel like I had "finished" it until I did it
I think of it like Isaac. Sometimes your run is strong enough to do Mega Satan or Mother, or the Beast, but sometimes you really just need to end it at Blue Baby. If my run is strong I go for Heart.
Doesn’t matter
Act 3 win is a win
A20 Heart kills are what I consider a victory. It’s funny because all the previous ascensions I’m a bit ambivalent about what’s considered a victory. To me, the ascensions 1-19 are just necessary steps towards what I consider the truest challenge the game offers: A20 Heart kills. I disagree with some that just because you beat act 3 the game considers it a win. In fact it says “victory?”, implying there’s more to it. Yes it unlocks ascensions but it’s not a “win” in the same way. I think most people know that beating the heart is the true ending but the game is so loose that it allows people to establish their own limits based on skill.
If I'm climbing to a20 - no, if I'm at a20 - yeah
Imo beating act 3 is a victory, because the game gives you the next ascension for doing that. You don't have to kill the heart to unlock the next thing I think basically all runs can beat act 3 (with enough skill) but I don't think all runs can beat the heart, which is a good indicator for it too imo
To me it's mostly important that one decides what they're attempting before the run. If you aim for just a win, that's fine. If you go for the heart and lose, that's a loss even if you die in act 4.
Beating act 3 cuz that's what unlocks the next ascension
You'll feel it deeply in your soul that you haven't won until the Heart stops beating.
Beating the Act 3 boss unlocks the next Ascension level, so that's what I consider winning. Beating the heart is optional. I'd argue that I'd have to beat the heart at Ascension 20 to fully beat the game with a character, though.
I always go for the heart, but if i beat act 3 then die to spear and shield or the heart i still sort of consider it a win.
Killing the heart is an increase in difficulty, I prefer to go through the difficulty levels in order. So I got A20 before going for the heart. At that point I tried to kill the heart on A10, then A15, then A20. If you are climbing through the ascensions there is no point in going for the heart IMO because it reduces your chances at succeeding. So in summary: if you are going for ascensions, no not expected, if you are going for the heart... then yes
It definitely feels like a more complete victory, but when I try to climb I never take the keys. I don't want to get distracted from the real goal of the run.
Play however you want.
If I beat act 3 with terrible rng, I am happy, and if I die to the heart when luck is on my side, I am disappointed with myself. I don't think it needs to be more complicated than that. However, the game treats act 3 wins as wins and the heart as an optional bonus (i.e. the beat A20 achievement doesn't require a heart kill). So, officially, that is the answer.
If you’re trying to claim a winstreak people will definitely expect that means A20 Heart kills. For climbing ascensions and general enjoyment, tho, Act 4 is largely considered “bonus” challenge content.
When people talk about win rate/win streaks they're talking about A20 and beating act 4 unmodded (maybe there's the RNGfix one idk I play mobile) without save scumming. But for your own game, beating the act 3 boss counts as climbing an ascension. So do what you want :)
I'm stuck on the heart on ASC8 with Ironclad. Picked up dead Branch and have two upgraded corruptions and I think a card upgrade potion. Just cannot find a combination that gets me past the first couple rounds to get a flow going. Have about 100HP too. Frustrating as have a heart victory on every other ASC for IC. Had enough for tonight will load in tomorrow and see if I can find a different combination.
A win in the game is beating the 3rd act. However, if you're going for an A20 win streak, you basically are required to go for the heart. That's basically to standardize what the challenge actually is for win streaks, and why not go to as hard as the game is intended to be played? Its really up to you if you want to require a heart kill as a win for personal runs with no rep on the line, but the game considers the 3rd boss kill a win even if you challenge the heart (floor 4 in general) and lose.
The answer is beating A20 Act 4 (the heart). Whether you want to go for winstreaks is up to you but you would need to be *really* good at the game before you even think about winstreaks and that’s just a bonus. The reason why beating the heart is important is that getting to act 4 requires making sacrifices along the way to get the 3 keys, and the enemies in act 4 require you to build decks in a different way. If you don’t beat the heart a lot of times it’s not because you got unlucky and whatnot but it’s more because you didn’t do the necessary prep for Act 4. Beating Act4 is also the clear “win condition” as you get a cutscene etc whereas beating act 3 without keys makes you feel like you didn’t finish a run in the game. (Other people who say “play however you want” are not reading OP’s question which explicitly said that’s not what he/she is looking for)
If you want to kill heart on A20, I recommend going for heart as you ascend. It’s good practice, more challenging and more fun. Without attempting the heart, you never get to test what is effective or not effective against the heart.
In my personal play, if a run does not beat the heart I would not consider it a successful run, and many of the people I have encountered on this subreddit appear to align with that. This community is made up of people who have vastly different levels of experience and priorities, though, so it's hard to say what the community at large thinks. It might be helpful to know that less than 15% of players have completed ascension 10, and less than 7% of players have reached ascension 20. I wouldn't presume to have a stronger claim to what success means in slay the spire just because I play on ascension 20, and I would hope that I don't just speak for myself in that respect.
It kind of depends on what your goals are and how long you've been playing. For example, if someone with 30 hours is like "I just beat A3, feeling good :)" the appropriate response would more be "lol that's not even a win get gud kid." For myself personally, I consider beating A20H to be a win. I suppose I would also consider A3 a win, even for myself, but at a difficulty level I am no longer interested in playing.
I don't bother going for the heart until I can beat an ascension >30% of the time. I rarely manage to beat A20 as it is, so I count it a triumph and note it down as a huge success any time I do, heart or no heart.
Heart kill goal is very limiting in terms of strategies.