The reason for the Fecundity nerf (My own take/retrospective)

[Fizzy Kitty]

So now that Kaycee's mod is out, and the whole topic's seemingly died down a bit from the initial backlash, I personally wanna go back to a topic that was pretty largely debated when it happened
In a major update to the Kaycee's mod beta, one of the biggest things the developers did was nerf the Fecundity sigil specially for the mode. The community was divided over this issue for some time, but today I wanna toss my hat in the ring, hopefully giving a new perspective on the Fecundity Nerf, and why I don't think it was an inherently bad thing for the game.
(Do note that I haven't been in any Inscryption Discord servers or anything, so if there's continuing parts of the debate I'm not aware of and I end up making some similar points to that, I apologize in advance)

To start, I think there's a massive amount of disconnect in why Fecundity got nerfed in the first place. Many people think it was to "balance" the game in the standard sense of removing a more powerful option, and in that vein, it was understandable to be for or against it I think. One group thinks it detracts the fun, as I said, or just think balancing a single player game like that is kinda dumb, while the other side thinks it's understandable due to this being a challenge mode, with some people going so far as to say old Fecundity was braindead or gave an easy win whenever it was used.
However, this is all based on the assumption that Fecundity WAS nerfed for its power alone. As far as I'm aware, no comments have been made one way or the other on the reason for the Fecundity nerf, aside from the initial patch note saying "Kaycee's decided to nerf it", and Kaycee bringing it up as "broken" in one of her dev logs.

But we have to remember here that Kaycee is a CHARACTER. Not a stand in for one of the devs, an actual character in the crazy ARG world of Inscryption. Her words don't necessarily speak for the devs actual feelings, plus, if they really just wanted to nerf the strongest options, wouldn't they have nerfed the Immortality sigil too? There's a stupid number of synergies in Kaycee's mod with Immortality, many of which the mod explicitly ADDS through new cards or rule changes, so to say the devs are entirely against "Free win buttons" or infinite combos doesn't feel like the full story. So what's going on here?

Well, after thinking about it and getting my hands on the update proper (Since I decided to wait instead of partake in the beta), I believe the reason Fecundity got nerfed wasn't to lower its own power, but rather to not outshine the power of another sigil: The aforementioned Immortality.
When it really comes down to it, Fecundity is just better then Immortality in every way imaginable. Maybe not in the viability of its base card, granted, but as a sigil, it effectively gives you double the value, adding a copy of the card rather then putting the existing copy back in your hand. This alone opens up basically the exact same opportunities immortality does, while also opening up new ones all its own (Most notably the option to flood the board with free cards, like gecks or pelts).

This is perfectly fine in the base game, since the gameplay is more of a vehicle for the story Inscryption wants to tell. It's not the main focus of the game, even if it is a MASSIVE hook for a lot of people. Kaycee's mod is different though. Story takes a backseat as unlockable devlogs in favor of overcoming gameplay challenges and eventually reaching a true, climactic final boss. In a gameplay-focused challenge mode like this, you don't usually want one strategy to severely outshine another, even if it is slightly harder to get as a sort of "Balance"
By nerfing Fecundity, it effectively solves this problem, not by intentionally making Fecundity weaker, but by moving its niche into something less overshadowing, and more unique. Fecundity as it is now no longer cannibalizes Immortality strats, and instead opens up strats of its own. Maybe it's not as good or liable to snap the game in two with proper usage, but it doesn't make another game mechanic partially obsolete anymore, and that's what's really important here.

If you really just can't accept that reasoning and still want old Fecundity, well... It still works the same as always in the base game. Sure, it may not have the new cards from Kaycee's mod, but there are plenty of mods out there which add OTHER new cards. The modding scene has advanced so much, that people could probably just stick nearly every new card in Kaycee's mod into OG Act 1 at this point. If not, then maybe there's a mod that puts OG Fecundity back into Kaycee's mod.
Point is, I think that the nerf to Fecundity was understandable, if done for this reason. It might "Detract from the fun" in a sense for some people, but in the end, I don't think it affected the end product too much. Kaycee's mod is still really fun from what I've played so far, and you can ABSOLUTELY still snap the mode in two. (Just recently, I used Immortality + Black Goat to get Oroboros to 141 power for 150 damage total on Leshy in the Moon fight) Hopefully next time something like this happens, people can look at it beyond face value before harshly judging and tossing out mean things


Sorry this is such a long read, but I wanted to be thorough and get all my thoughts out. If you disagree with this, then that's perfectly fine! This is just as much speculation and opinion as anyone else's stance, so feel free to debate it if you like. Just, y'know, try to be civil, instead of calling people tryhards/killjoys for insisting on keeping the nerf from a mechanical standpoint, or calling them crybabies/accusing them of wanting easy wins for preferring the sigil back how it used to be.
That's all from me for now. Have a good night y'all!

[StayPuftMM]

I don't think it's that complicated. If part of your game is choosing between multiple randomly generated options based on what you've been given so far then having one option be way better than others in almost every situation doesn't work.

Also, I don't agree that undying is as strong as fecundity.

[YetiChow]

The other thing worth noting that is that even post-nerf, the old behaviour of Fecundity can be achieved through a couple of different options (and Undying is the main ingredient for several of those strategies) -- if preventing "infinite cards" had been truly the objective then the changes would have been different.

I agree with the premise that the old Fecundity was "just a better Undying", and it made Fecundity an auto-pick over everything else. Now though, if given the choice between Undying, Fecundity and possibly a couple of other sigils (such as Hoarder or Double Strike, maybe even Rabbit Hole/Bees Within/Loose Tail or Trinket Bearer) they're all top-tier and worthy of consideration against each other.

[Fizzy Kitty]

Garent a écrit :

I don't think it's that complicated. If part of your game is choosing between multiple randomly generated options based on what you've been given so far then having one option be way better than others in almost every situation doesn't work.

Also, I don't agree that undying is as strong as fecundity.

Undying certainly isn't as strong as Fecundity. My whole point is that Fecundity was better then Undying in every conceivable way, opening pretty much the same strats and infinites Undying already does, possibly even faster, with a few extras to boot. As an example, putting Fecundity on a Black Goat could infinitely buff an Oroboros the exact same way Undying on a Black Goat does, while ALSO allowing for infinite bones all by itself, no extra cards needed. It just did more and was the superior sigil.
While changing Fecundity did remove some strats and lower the speed on others, the fact remains that Undying still allows for MUCH of the same stuff. You can still flood the board with infinite bees from a buffed Beehive or tails from an infinite Skink, choke the opponent's side with cracked eggs from an infinite Cuckoo, or give your choice of Oroboros, Red Hart, or Lammergeier as much power as you have the patience to give, the only difference being that these strats generally take a bit more time or setup then they would've with OG Fecundity.

Now granted, there's an argument to be made that just slowing these strats down while also limiting access to them somewhat was enough of a nerf on its own to consider them properly balanced, and if that's how you feel, more power to you. I just don't think it's overcomplicating things to believe that, from a game developer's perspective, they might not want one of their mechanic to literally just be another mechanic, but better, and they'd "nerf" the mechanic for that reason.
Though it could also be a combination of genuinely wanting to nerf the power of those given strats AND my thoughts of wanting Undying to not feel as irrelevant, who knows.

[StayPuftMM]

I don't think that having one sigil be a pure upgrade over another is necessarily a bad thing. Tri-strike is a straight upgrade to Bi-strike barring niche interactions. That makes sense because one of them comes on a rare. Burrower being a big upgrade over Guardian is a bit more of an issue, and is part of the reason that Bloodhound is bad.

[Radene]

Garent a écrit :

I don't think that having one sigil be a pure upgrade over another is necessarily a bad thing. Tri-strike is a straight upgrade to Bi-strike barring niche interactions. That makes sense because one of them comes on a rare. Burrower being a big upgrade over Guardian is a bit more of an issue, and is part of the reason that Bloodhound is bad.

Niche interactions can get funky, yes. Guardian against Bi is actually powerful, since it can hit the opposing creature without risk.

[StayPuftMM]

I once had an injured pronghorn attack around a porcupine and then move to avoid the attack from it the next turn. Probably the only time I've ever had a "move after attacking" sigil be useful and not just a thing that will cause me to screw things up when I forget to account for it.

[Fizzy Kitty]

Garent a écrit :

I don't think that having one sigil be a pure upgrade over another is necessarily a bad thing. Tri-strike is a straight upgrade to Bi-strike barring niche interactions. That makes sense because one of them comes on a rare. Burrower being a big upgrade over Guardian is a bit more of an issue, and is part of the reason that Bloodhound is bad.

I'd argue Tri-Strike and Bi-Strike stacking in Kaycee's mod allows them to coexist decently well. Gives reason to pick up both a Mantis God and plain Mantis in one run aside from just having two of the "same" ability, and opens up a couple unique plays you couldn't do otherwise.
While you CAN stack Undying and Fecundity, it's debatably much harder, since you can't just stack one on the opposite card (Fecundity on roach or Undying on mice) and still end up with a good card, so it requires good totem RNG to get a good combo going.
Stacking Undying and OG Fecundity also didn't allow for new options so much as it just improved the existing options (Already have infinite Gecks? Cool! Have DOUBLE the infinite Gecks!), making the upgrade in that regard possibly a bit more glaring then Bi v Tri is now.

I also don't think Burrower is inherently an upgraded version of Guardian, as the latter has a use of blocking a specific thing you really don't want coming in, then taking it out in return. The problem is just how unpredictable it is beyond that ONE move, going who knows where once its actually killed its target, and the fact that stalling is just generally a better strat then this weird half-approach of blocking and killing one specific card. The comparison is closer to Airborne v Waterborne then it is to Fecundity v Undying imo, it's just that the offensive option happens to be WAY worse then the defensive option nine times outta ten.

[flatfinger]

Unkillable is mostly weaker than working fecundity, except for the way it interacts with fledgling, especially a fledgling totem. If a card has a fledgling sigil and the enhanced form costs the same as the original (as is the case with e.g. Moth Man) then an enhanced unit that dies can be replaced with another pre-enhanced unit. If used with a fledgling totem, things are even better since the card can benefit from repeated evolution. Unfortunately, Unkillable does not work to return a usable cat to hand after nine sacrifices. In the days of pre-nerf fecundity, it would be possible possible to boost a unit to thousands, millions, or even billions of attack points, by using a cat with morsel and fecundity, a River Snapper with Unkillable, an Ouroborus, and a Lizard:Morsel totem. After each group of about ten sacrifices, the Cat would need to be replaced, but the replacement could be ten times as strong as its predecessor. That doesn't work any more, though.