darkSpyro

I just played it and it took me like 2 hours to beat it.

Quote: PwnageFTW

I just played it and it took me like 2 hours to beat it.

Go to Pause Menu > Options > Difficulty and set it to Beginner...

Quote: TTD

At first I found it a little difficult but I adapted my strategy to Skystones Overdrive. It seems that my strategy that I used on Skystones Smash no longer applies on Overdrive.

What i did with Skystones Smash was fill up my deck with Doom Raiders and then spam them.

Quote: PwnageFTW

I just played it and it took me like 2 hours to beat it.

2 hours? you must have some really bad luck or a really bad deck. even on nightmare mode none of the npc's really are even a challenge in skystones, and in nightmare mode they start with 40 hp.

I'll be honest...it's luck. I'll play and it's VERY DIFFICULT to win, and then the next game is a cakewalk. Luck of cards you get at first make a difference, as well as the deck itself...but I've used the same deck and have seen huge differences from game to game. Doom Raiders and other "game changer" cards do make a difference.

only special cards i use are the destroy card instantly ones, chef pepperjack is nice too. kaos to much of a dice roll, last thing you need is it to backfire. as far as luck, i dont really think so. build a good deck and all your cards will be good. luck becomes a factor when playing other people as that seems to be the only real challenge in skystones. also hp >> attack power, they cant directly hit you if your cards are taking the damage instead. use that to fill out your side and the fights are cake walks.

because it's a good thing to have challenge.
The previous skystone game was so easy that it became quickly boring.

Quote: Alphawolf

Quote: PwnageFTW

I just played it and it took me like 2 hours to beat it.

2 hours? you must have some really bad luck or a really bad deck. even on nightmare mode none of the npc's really are even a challenge in skystones, and in nightmare mode they start with 40 hp.

I don't know what it is but it was just SUPER HARD. I had my BEST skystones with me during it and I just COULDN'T beat it.

I never found any of them that challenging.

Same here, it is not really hard at all, it's just having enough good cards and knowing how to play.

Importing your entire collection of trapped villians does help give you some strong cards early on.

Use the Sea Shadow vehicle for your main card as that allows you to reshuffle and get better cards for the times when you get all one damage hp cards or weak powers.

Never take the rock out, always allow it to do 2 points damage as it's a safe loss vs always trying to take out his cards. The idea is to always get hits on the player and force him to take your cards out.

Again, never be in the position where you are constantly taking his cards out as you won't catch up. Force him to beat you and have him always taking your cards out while you strike.

Always get the top spot for striking. The top spot hits first so your most powerful damage cards should always go there. The bottom spot is for weak cards and spell cards. Center spot should always be free for his rock damage until you dominate the board and overpower him.

It tends to be a pretty easy game when you do it like that. You should pick between Sea Shadow or Hot Streak depending on how you play and deck. Hot Streak can give a good player 8 free unobstructed hits but Sea Shadow does reshuffle your cards which tends to be invaluable with weaker hands. Lately I rarely loose more than once in a row and either cards does me well.

One additional hint. Don't stand on the board and activate the game. I done that with Echo and it glitches the 360 where it freezes after the game is over. It has had happened several times so now I'm very careful about where I'm standing.

Skystones Overdrive is a real waste of time.

Skystones Overdrive is pretty nice and in PVP there's definately no 100% right deck, but the PVE can be fooled a bit too easily. As said,keep the Rock on the field for as long as possible; you can also throw down meat shields and watch the AI fall right in and let it soak up the damage even if it's the only card in your board.

I think Skystones Overdrive is really fun. It's definitely more complex than Skystones Smash, which is a very good thing.

If you want a real waste of time, trying playing through Monster Marsh, or really any Trap Team level with a required Skystones match.

Monster Marsh requires a match? I don't remember that, I remember dumb unskippable dialogue. The one that requires it that seriously slows down is Telescope Towers.
I like that it isn't required in Superchargers but it's not too off the path either; so for searching specific opponents or cards it's usually an easy puzzle.

Yeah, Monster Marsh is the absoute worst level in any Sklanders game. I've had to play it so many times, but the Skystones match really slows it down even more.

I had to play it once for story mode, again to capture the Eye Scream, then again to do Eye Scream's quest, then again once I got the Dark pack to open the gate and do Fisticuff's quest, and then the game glitched on me, so I had to play it and do Fisticuff's quest AGAIN. And then there's probably other times I had to play it, for other reasons. At the very least that's 5 different times I had to play it and waste time on the SKystones Smash match.

Oh wait I remember now,the windmill guy. It slows down a lot but at least he's not a jerk like the Telescope Towers guy.
I love the level's aesthetics, but man they screwed it up so hard. And with this game's undead level not being really undead themed... Hoping for amazing spooky scary on Skylanders 6 that's actually great to play as well, we haven't had that since the Spectral Dreadnaught/Aerial Attack(not speaking of the shooting sections,I'm talking about the crazy giant rotting ship whose crew really likes spinning sharp things).

I find I needed to adjust my strategy based on who I played, in later matches you want to stack on the effects cards that do things like Return cards to hands, Destroy cards, deal damage, summon allies. Actually my vehicle of choice is usually Hot Streak. In short I like to punch through with damage, and keep my opponent's side as empty as possible while mine stays full.

I never really adjusted my strategy and mostly went with my high power/direct damage setup from Trap Team.

Unless they have a special effect, focus on characters who have at least 4 attack or at least 6 health. They can fall-off in other stats if they have at least one up there. (Lord Stratosfear is a 5/3, Crankenstein is a 3/6. Both are great) Pepperjack, Flynn, Dreamcatcher, and Ptera Shark all boot The Rock(Or anything else, really). Kali allows a reversal. Pendergast is a coin-toss, but the extra bulk helps. Malefor is devastating on turn-1 or an open field. Crankcase is better than Moneybone since he can also tank the sheep and block for another turn. Cards that require risk like Kaos aren't worth it.

Barrel Blaster is BUH-ROKEN (8 health every 3 turns? Hokay!)

Wind gets a lot of good characters, so having a wind Skylander in play can help.

I'm just short the Light/Dark Trap Team characters and Calliope...Where's Calliope, by the way?

Calliope is in Cloud Kingdom.

The CARD?

Yup, the card you get by beating the Titans in Cloud Kingdom. It's in the room with the live wire puzzle.

interesting strats, but i would disagree on not killing the rock turn one. i take that thing out first turn, but i make sure to use a card that can survive the fight and the fight during the next round. you dont need some super op card to do this ether, most will work, but everyone has there own strats. but we all agree on 1 thing, the npc's are easy if you got most of the cards and know how to play the game using whatever strat you prefer. if your having trouble its time to rethink your deck/strat. so far ive only lost 1 skystones game and that was vs another person, even then it was a close game he had like 5 hp left.

The only time I don't kill the rock turn 1 is if I topdeck a 5-power attacker like Stratosfear.

Actually my strategy is based on what the computer is doing against you. I learned how to beat the computer by watching what it does to beat me. The rock is actually the key to making the game easy or hard because it determines who has control of the board.

It's much harder to win the game when you kill the rock as it mostly becomes a matter of your drawing a lucky magic card to regain control. When you leave the rock alone, the immediate goal of the game is to control the top spot. Your placing a card there will send damage to the computer on the very first play. BUT this card must be a high damage card in order for the computer to take the bait and fight you for that spot. If you use a low damage card, the computer will put a card in the bottom slot (often a very powerful one) and they will take control of the board.

Basically the computer is programmed to allow acceptable damage from the top spot because it knows that gaining control of the board is essential. BUT it has a weakness where it won't do this if the top card you place is very powerful. So you can control the AI into always fighting with you for control of the top spot until you manage to win the top spot, which is easy to do because it places some rather awful cards down before too long.

Then the goal of the game is to win the bottom spot. Once that is done, then you move to the center spot and take out the rock. By now you'll have 3 filled spots on the board and the AI will try to fight you for one random spot as it has nothing else to do but loose. Lucky you because 2 of those spots will always hit the computer for damage and you should soon win the game with very little card maintance.

Of course there are magic cards which tries to quickly change who is in control, but for some reason the computer's magic cards are fairly weak and he is programmed to play the worse possible ones at most times. For example, he loves to use that race announcer guy, Chompie Mage and Dr. Crankcase which is more annoying than actually being fairly effective against you. It would take quite a time to explain the magic cards and how successfully to deal with them, but basically an unlucky one like Malifor can destroy your entire game plan, which is why I cannot win every single time but I do win most of the time.

Anyway, if you are a weaker player with not very strong cards, you should use a Sea Shadow as your vehicle to flip your hand to get better cards. Hot Streak does a killer 8 damage when played right and is for players more experienced with controling the board and who has a number of great cards to pick from. I don't have any other vehicle cards to know their abilities to comment about them but it's good to check them out and think about how to use them to enhance your gameplay.

Barrel Blaster will always heal you for 8 and your other stones for 1; it is beyond broken.
Sky Slicer and Jet-vac's ships are 1/1s who swap places with your opponent's best card.
Fiesta's vehicle powers up a random card for +4 for a turn, which is great if your one attacker has a clear path.
Dive Bomber does the hand swap effect.

only magic cards i use is chef pepperjack, tessa ( because i like her, not because shes good) pandergast, pherrashark and cali if i remember it right. all my other cards i just look for the most powerful ones, the min card i take is 3/4 or some combo of that. vehicle? i only got air, water and fire right now and the water reshuffle sucks in my opinion so its normally fire or air.

my strat is more defense, i take the rock out first turn and i always play the card that i know will survive 1 battle. example, im fighting the rock, i make sure my card can kill the rock in 1 hit and survive the hit from it as well, if it survives or kills the next card thats a bonus if not thats ok because my next card will kill whatever he layed down. the npc is never able to do any damage to me because its attacks are always blocked by my cards, eventually i get multiple cards on the field and the npc is helpless. no matter what magic cards the npc throws at me it dosent help them, even if all my cards are turn into sheep. using this strat i have never lost a game vs a npc even in nightmare mode, most of the time i have 20+ hp at the end, and i dont use hp boosting cards.

it seems alot of people go for the "rush kill" but in doing so they leave themselves open to attack. ive noticed the npc's do this as well on nightmare mode, they try to do nothing but attack in open spots and this makes them super easy to beat using my strat. if anything i think skystones is easier on nightmare mode vs normal mode.

as far as controlling the top spot and stuff. ive never cared, yea you get to attack first but what does it matter when you have 20+ hp at the end? i can see maybe it being a factor in a very close hp game. but by no means would i say having the top spot = a win.

Quote: TakeYourLemons

I'll be honest...it's luck. I'll play and it's VERY DIFFICULT to win, and then the next game is a cakewalk. Luck of cards you get at first make a difference, as well as the deck itself...but I've used the same deck and have seen huge differences from game to game. Doom Raiders and other "game changer" cards do make a difference.

It's not as bad as Gwent in Witcher 3. When that game wants to make a player hard, it gives them a ludicrous deck and the most ridiculous "luck" on the hand they draw. In other words, it stacks their deck. It's easy to make an AI "perfect", or to make one dumb, but the real difficulty is to making one challenging but not impossible, one that behaves like a human that sometimes makes mistakes or bad guesses of how you will counter.

Old chess games used to ramp up their difficulty by how many possible moves in advance it would anticipate in order to select the best option. In other words they would introduce "human behavior" by limiting how far in advance it would calculate.