Slay the Spire 2 proved an instant hit as soon as it went live in Early Access. However, just as with all Early Access games, there's still a lot of work to be done with Slay the Spire 2, as proven by the game's first beta patch, which certainly won't be the last.
After removing "infinite builds," the first major balance patch proved quite controversial, leading to a huge amount of review bombing for the game. This led MegaCrit, the game's developer, to explain how its patches work, writing the following message on social media:
"Since we have a lot of new players that weren't around for StS1's Early Access phase and players who are new to Early Access games in general, we wanted to explain our patching methodology a bit. We make changes based on a mix of player feedback, collected metrics, and our own design philosophies. While we look at feedback on many platforms, the feedback we receive via the in-game reporter from players who are testing the patch firsthand is the most useful to us.
This beta balance pass was the first of many to come over the next 1-2 years. The game will go through constant changes with the ultimate goal of making it as balanced of an experience as StS1 became. This progress will not be linear, and no change is necessarily permanent. The beta branch will see the most experimental changes and will be tweaked each time until we feel it's stable enough for the main branch. Participating in that process is optional but very helpful. Thank you for your patience as we slowly mold StS2 into its final shape!"
The patches in the beta branch don't necessarily need to be accessed right away by players, as it involves changing your Steam settings a bit with Slay the Spire 2. However, these patches aren't going to go away just because your favourite build got nerfed and you're not happy about it. With Slay the Spire 2 having a long lifecycle ahead of it before it hits full release, it's clear MegaCrit don't want players figuring out the best way to play and getting bored too early.
