Thoughts on all Vows (warning: really, really long)

[Tim]

Note that if I suggest nerfing a Vow, I implicitly expect the Fear granted to scale down as well.

Keep in mind that my views on these are kinda skewed since we're missing many labor-intensive Vow options that I assume will come later, like alternate bosses (Extreme Measures), armored enemy perks (Benefits Package), and so on. I "get" the design of having some Vows be inefficiently Fear-costed to make 24/32 Fear more interesting, but a lot of them go too far, imo.

I've been doing a lotta high-Fear runs for fun. They have been a lotta fun, so if I say something isn't fun, it's more like, "This dampens things." Hades II rocks.

~

Vow of Blood: All foes deal 20/60/100% more damage to Melinoe.
Frustrating that you can't get that 40% increment. Understand why, but oof.

Vow of Dominance: Every enemy has 10/20/30% more health.
Necessary evil, but not fun. Slows runs in an uninteresting way.
Maybe this effect could be split between bosses and normal enemies, 15/30%?

Vow of Rebuke: All enemies come with 1 or 2 Barriers.
This one's great since there are so many ways to approach it and it feels different on each unique enemy type.

Vow of Fury: Enemies become 20/40% faster.
So, I realize that Vows like this aren't meant to be fun for everybody. But something about 40% enemy speed feels worse here than the first game. Enemies run away so quickly they escape your Cast at melee range... Bullrushes, too... Leaping attacks (like from Werewolves) go through Casts unencumbered...
20% is fine, but it causes a lotta weirdness. Boulders spawning on top of you in the 2nd biome with Vow of Wandering... Attack hitboxes come out sooner than the animation if two animations are fighting... It creates a lot of unfair moments.
I find Chronos totally borked by this Vow, and it makes using Omegas super frustrating against him. I wonder if Chronos should be uniquely unaffected by all time effects from Melinoe, even ones that would benefit him. But that's probably too extreme.
Chronos needs strict scripting to keep attacks from overlaying, inappropriate attacks being performed while he's shielded, and to keep his rotation "honest" so he doesn't suddenly jerk in a direction he isn't facing. This is a problem with many enemies and bosses, too.

Vow of Suffering: Melinoe takes 100/300% more damage for the first strike in each area.
[i[Woof![/i] This one feels terrible. The first investment is good for the cost, technically, but it is NOT fun. 300% is workable but ick!
It's weird armor (shout out to Hepheastus' Trusty Shield) makes this free, but effects that outright nullify damage don't affect it. I understand why, but I wonder if it'll lead to unfun play patterns down the line.
At the same time, I'm not sure if I want it nerfed since it feels fairly costed for high fear (to a degree) and is very dramatic. Maybe 100/200 or 100/250 would feel less, like, "Never taking that except in a really weird challenge run!"

Vow of Commotion: Spawn 20/40/60% more enemies in every encounter
Fine except for all the waiting it brings. Waiting for all the enemies to spawn in slows rooms so much that runs are unenjoyable. More enemies per each wave/overlapping waves, please!

Vow of Haunting: Most of the defeated enemies have a 25/50% chance of turning into a Revenant.
I wish it was easier to collect these things. It seems their hitbox is wide[/i[]tall enough? You gotta make good stuff taller and bad stuff shorter so it feels more "fair" in this perspective.
Otherwise, quite fun and makes you move through encounters in a totally different way.

Vow of Wandering: Enemies have a 10/25% chance of being from the next Region.
LOVE this one.

Vow of Scars: Melinoe's healing effects are 75/50/0% effective.
This one's well paced out and fair, but it IS sad that healing effects don't occur at all in the final tier.

Vow of Destitution: Items sold by Charon are 40%/80% more expensive.
This one's not very fun but fair.

Vow of Panic: Melinoe enters each location with 0% magic.
Not sure how to feel about this one. It's very dynamic and changes how you play, at least, and I like how asymmetrical it feels depending on your weapons/boons. But since it takes away your options right at the start of battle, it's not fun except when it's free or you've trivialized it with magick restoration core boons... So it feels like paying a tax.

Vow of Forsaking: Selecting a Boon will cause two unpicked blessings to not appear in the rest of the run.
Now THIS is the stuff! It's definitely a penalty and makes certain Duos/Legendaries less likely, but it can also be used in your favor to ban unwanted boons. Makes rerolls more interesting as well. Wonderful.

Vow of Bitterness: The first Boon in each Region becomes a red onion.
This one STINKS. It's not fun, and it's inappropriately costed at 3... for everything but one-button builds.
Like, I've made 32 Fear runs work with this on, but only because the build I'm going for only requires 1 core Boon to be good. It gives SUCH a massive benefit to one-button builds at high Fear that I worry it's bad for the game. And everything else playing with this suffers.
I wonder if this one could use per-region stacks. Like "First boon in first region, first boon in first two regions," etc.

Vow of Arrogance: Every time Melinoe picks a Boon, Prime.
LOVE this one. It really makes you think about which boons you need. Also makes Magick potions a more attractive pick up.

(EDIT) Vow of Desperation: Melinoe gets 9/7/5 minutes to clear each region.
I love this one in the first game. Here it's much more painful. Gathering chips away a lotta time... Runs feel longer, even when your build is very strong... Could be a skill issue, but either runs are too long, these time limits are too tight, or this one's meant to be harsher and the final increment deserves 2 Fear instead of just 1.

Vow of Abandon: Negates all benefits of Arcana Cards.
Eww, no, bad, take it away.
Please make this reduce your maximum Grasp in increments. I understand that favors the Judgement Arcana a lot, but that's not such a bad thing, is it?
I literally can't think of any reason this is costed at 5 Fear. Like, it might as well cost 0 because of how irrelevant it is to anything except a challenge run. I understand why there's something in the game to force Arcana off in a formalized way, but trying to make this one work at relevant Fear milestones feels worse than any other Vow combination.

I hope we get to sell Boons soon and get an equivalent to Underworld Customs from the first game. Feels more relevant than ever thanks to Hera.

[Neferneith]

I think you forgot

Vow of Desesperation : time limit of 9/8/7 (?) minutes per act.
This one was not my favorite in Hades first of the name and I think it's worse here. Hades II is more tactical, in my opinion. As in H1, this vow is mandatory for high heat/fear but synergise awfully with Haunting, Dominance and Rebuke.

I mostly agree with you on Fun/Fair of each vow. Some seems a liitle over/underpriced.

Vow of Panic is very weapon dependant and that's ok.
Vow of Forsaking is triggering angst of choosing in me.
Vow of Suffering is fair VS mobs but decimating against certain Bosses. It could use different parameters. The fact that certain mitigations works and others don't is bothersome.
Vow of Scar rank 3 should be 10% healing rounded down.
I wouldn't take Vow of Abandon except for a challenge/Achiev/Story.

[TriumphantBass]

Re: desperation, "Gathering chips away a lotta time...". I may be wrong on this, but I thought I noted my timer freeze for the gathering animations. Personally I think 7 is reliable if I don't have too many HP/spawn/etc. vows, but yeah 5 is an absolute blitz and feels like a stretch even with all other vows off. Like the trial of haste had an absurd speed build preset and that still took several tries to clear. I think it's still good to keep around but should be worth more fear for that last notch.

[Tim]

Originally posted by TriumphantBass:

Re: desperation, "Gathering chips away a lotta time...". I may be wrong on this, but I thought I noted my timer freeze for the gathering animations.

It freezes when you've collected a room reward. It doesn't freeze between killing all enemies in a room and collecting a room reward, and it still takes time to walk across the room to gather materials. Leads to a lotta "death by 1000 cuts" situations unless you skip all the gathering.

IMO, any room that has gathering materials should pause time once combat is over to make up for all the walking back and forth.

[The Sojourner]

Well said! Seems you did more testing with the Vows than I did (some of them I couldn't stomach, such as the Vow of Desperation, or the Vow of Abandon, because the rest of the game is generally ill-suited for such Vows). Of course it is early access, so I half-expect this portion of the game to be imperfect.

Originally posted by Tim:

Vow of Blood: All foes deal 20/60/100% more damage to Melinoe.
Frustrating that you can't get that 40% increment. Understand why, but oof.

I don't understand, so "oof" indeed. I miss the old system, which had 5 increments of 20% each.

Originally posted by Tim:

Vow of Dominance: Every enemy has 10/20/30% more health.
Necessary evil, but not fun. Slows runs in an uninteresting way.
Maybe this effect could be split between bosses and normal enemies, 15/30%?

I agree, this should scale differently for (mini)bosses, since they tend to have higher levels of health. Almost makes picking this one discouraging were it not for how innocuous it is.

Originally posted by Tim:

Vow of Rebuke: All enemies come with 1 or 2 Barriers.
This one's great since there are so many ways to approach it and it feels different on each unique enemy type.

Agree, though it is kinda useless on bosses, just like in the original game. More interesting: a Time Sign occasionally appears in Encounters.

Originally posted by Tim:

Vow of Fury: Enemies become 20/40% faster.
So, I realize that Vows like this aren't meant to be fun for everybody. But something about 40% enemy speed feels worse here than the first game. Enemies run away so quickly they escape your Cast at melee range... Bullrushes, too... Leaping attacks (like from Werewolves) go through Casts unencumbered...

The game right now doesn't entirely feel fun to casually speedrun. For one, it's not easy as of now to just stumble into any sort of broken build like in the original game, but everything you described (and perhaps more) also explains why this vow needs everything else in the game to be well-designed and balanced in order for it to feel fun. In the original game for instance, the Aspect of Nemesis for Stygius and the Lambent Plume from Hermes made casual speedrunning feel fun.

(Also I had no idea that Chronos behaves weirdly with this Vow! Funny...)

Originally posted by Tim:

Vow of Suffering: Melinoe takes 100/300% more damage for the first strike in each area.
[i[Woof![/i] This one feels terrible. The first investment is good for the cost, technically, but it is NOT fun. 300% is workable but ick!

I can't even with this one. The concept of it sounds too cruel, especially with how different foes deal different damage. It means you're luckier if you get hit by an ordinary foe than a Guardian! Thus, mixed messages are sent: don't take any damage, but preferably take any damage as soon as possible, except it's natural to take any damage as late as possible, usually by accident.

Originally posted by Tim:

Vow of Commotion: Spawn 20/40/60% more enemies in every encounter
Fine except for all the waiting it brings. Waiting for all the enemies to spawn in slows rooms so much that runs are unenjoyable. More enemies per each wave/overlapping waves, please!

This was a bit of a problem in the original game, too, along with the general spawning process ("just SPAWN already so I can slay you faster than you spawned!!").

Originally posted by Tim:

Vow of Haunting: Most of the defeated enemies have a 25/50% chance of turning into a Revenant.
I wish it was easier to collect these things. It seems their hitbox is wide[/i[]tall enough? You gotta make good stuff taller and bad stuff shorter so it feels more "fair" in this perspective.
Otherwise, quite fun and makes you move through encounters in a totally different way.

I found no issues with this one, except that sometimes a Revenant will occasionally end up in a broad dangerous-to-traverse area, and incidentally wind up making more busywork for you as the Revenant respawns.

Originally posted by Tim:

Vow of Wandering: Enemies have a 10/25% chance of being from the next Region.
LOVE this one.

Same! Idk whether it's more or less interesting than something like Slashed Benefits though.

Originally posted by Tim:

Vow of Scars: Melinoe's healing effects are 75/50/0% effective.
This one's well paced out and fair, but it IS sad that healing effects don't occur at all in the final tier.

More or less this is the same issue as Vow of Blood: that 25% tier is missing, and sometimes that's the exact one I want to run with!

Originally posted by Tim:

Vow of Panic: Melinoe enters each location with 0% magic.
Not sure how to feel about this one. It's very dynamic and changes how you play, at least, and I like how asymmetrical it feels depending on your weapons/boons. But since it takes away your options right at the start of battle, it's not fun except when it's free or you've trivialized it with magick restoration core boons... So it feels like paying a tax.

Perhaps it would be better as "your Magick does not regenerate upon entering a Location," compounded with a starting amount (100%, 50%, 0%). Then it would continue to play nice with the Arcana and boons.

Originally posted by Tim:

Vow of Forsaking: Selecting a Boon will cause two unpicked blessings to not appear in the rest of the run.
Now THIS is the stuff! It's definitely a penalty and makes certain Duos/Legendaries less likely, but it can also be used in your favor to ban unwanted boons. Makes rerolls more interesting as well. Wonderful.

I love this one too! It makes you look past the rarity of certain boons and be willing to humbly accept Common boons. Gotta wonder though: with runs focused on one Olympian, what happens if they run out of boons to give?

Originally posted by Tim:

Vow of Bitterness: The first Boon in each Region becomes a red onion.
This one STINKS. It's not fun, and it's inappropriately costed at 3... for everything but one-button builds.
Like, I've made 32 Fear runs work with this on, but only because the build I'm going for only requires 1 core Boon to be good. It gives SUCH a massive benefit to one-button builds at high Fear that I worry it's bad for the game. And everything else playing with this suffers.
I wonder if this one could use per-region stacks. Like "First boon in first region, first boon in first two regions," etc.

Could work — I actually find this one of the more palatable options among the Vows though, even in its current state.

Though I find that there's also a narrative/scripting issue: sometimes Melinoe acts like there's a boon as her reward instead of a mere Red Onion. Supergiant needs to write and record some special lines for when this Vow gets picked.

Originally posted by Tim:

Vow of Arrogance: Every time Melinoe picks a Boon, Prime.
LOVE this one. It really makes you think about which boons you need. Also makes Magick potions a more attractive pick up.

I'm kinda mixed about this, especially since there's also Chaos's Fixated bane and other ways Magick can be primed. Perhaps once everything else is balanced this will be fine, but as it is, I'm reluctant to pick this vow seeing as it can be a bit of a killjoy when the player is unable to use Omega moves due to too much priming of Magick.

Originally posted by Tim:

(EDIT) Vow of Desperation: Melinoe gets 9/7/5 minutes to clear each region.
I love this one in the first game. Here it's much more painful. Gathering chips away a lotta time... Runs feel longer, even when your build is very strong... Could be a skill issue, but either runs are too long, these time limits are too tight, or this one's meant to be harsher and the final increment deserves 2 Fear instead of just 1.

Definitely agree! Runs definitely feel longer in this sequel. As of now, I'd settle for 10/8/6 minutes per Region, though perhaps as things become better balanced, the ol' 9/7/5 minutes per Region will become viable again — maybe even fun!

Originally posted by Tim:

Vow of Abandon: Negates all benefits of Arcana Cards.
Eww, no, bad, take it away.
Please make this reduce your maximum Grasp in increments. I understand that favors the Judgement Arcana a lot, but that's not such a bad thing, is it?
I literally can't think of any reason this is costed at 5 Fear. Like, it might as well cost 0 because of how irrelevant it is to anything except a challenge run. I understand why there's something in the game to force Arcana off in a formalized way, but trying to make this one work at relevant Fear milestones feels worse than any other Vow combination.

I remember seeing some early access footage for the original game, and there was a Pact called "budget cuts" that limited the amount of Darkness you could have in your Mirror of Night. I suspect that Supergiant switched to the current version in that game because it was easier to figure out exactly which Talents to deactivate instead. I suspect this game could do something similar: instead of Grasp, which would be ideal, it could be rows or columns of Arcana cards that get deactivated (though I should note: Death Defiance should be deactivated only on the top tier, and not one tier lower!).

No, this one's fine conceptually, but it's not tiered at all, which means it's terrible as it is.

Originally posted by Tim:

I hope we get to sell Boons soon and get an equivalent to Underworld Customs from the first game. Feels more relevant than ever thanks to Hera.

Seems like it could replace the current Vow of Bitterness if such a thing ever gets implemented. I hope it does!

Also, another thought for Vows: have some Vows unique to Underworld runs and some unique to Surface runs!

[Neo NiGHTS ®]

@The Soujorner - when you run out of boons, you get 90 coins instead.

[Muzazabi]

Vow of Fury really shows the difference between both games.
Despite the first game being more frenetic and thus making the speed pact even faster, it never really made the enemies act in a way you couldn't get used to.
Hades 2 is a far more strategic game, making the enemies even slighty faster really messes with the timing of most of your omega attacks and specially your sprint which wasn't really designed for sudden changes in movement.

[Tim]

Originally posted by Muzazabi:

Vow of Fury really shows the difference between both games.
Despite the first game being more frenetic and thus making the speed pact even faster, it never really made the enemies act in a way you couldn't get used to.
Hades 2 is a far more strategic game, making the enemies even slighty faster really messes with the timing of most of your omega attacks and specially your sprint which wasn't really designed for sudden changes in movement.

Yeah, it makes me wonder if Vow of Fury needs to speed up some of Melinoe's actions to compensate for how enemies behave, or if enemies need a suite of speed-unaffected behaviors, such as tracking (rotation) speed. So many attacks are no longer safely Sprint-able that are fun to Sprint past normally.

[Sintonir]

Two ideas for Vow of Abandon:
- First: limit your Grasp to 20-10-0 and limit the Judgment arcana to +1-+0-none
Pro: this means the player can actually choose which Arcana he wants.
Con: you need to somehow choose which Arcana to keep, which makes the process less smooth.
- Second: just straight downgrade all your Arcana
Pro: seems easy to implement, does not intrude on how quickly you can go from one run to the next.
Con: I think it is always the first level which is the most powerful.

[Tim]

Originally posted by Sintonir:

Two ideas for Vow of Abandon:
- First: limit your Grasp to 20-10-0 and limit the Judgment arcana to +1-+0-none
Pro: this means the player can actually choose which Arcana he wants.
Con: you need to somehow choose which Arcana to keep, which makes the process less smooth.
- Second: just straight downgrade all your Arcana
Pro: seems easy to implement, does not intrude on how quickly you can go from one run to the next.
Con: I think it is always the first level which is the most powerful.

I don't think you'd need to limit the Judgement Arcana; it's not that great anyway, and you're making compromises at 10 Grasp.

I REALLY like the Arcana downgrade idea. Would make a great separate Vow all its own.

[Pepper]

The Abandonment Arcana fear measure seems pretty wild to just be "all or nothing". Which i guess is the point. But it would feel more approachable if it were like the Heat options in Hades 1 that were like "x mirror of night talents are disabled"
I feel like you could still make it evil And scalable. Like ppl have said here, Arcana levels being capped
Or it could be like a reverse REDACTED keepsake; after a guardian, X number of active random arcana cards are nullified. Or X number of active cards loses a rank

One thing that bothers me about the Timer vow is how the timer keeps running when you input Hex trigger and between when the hex actually Does the Thing. LIke if you get the Nighmare Mel, you have to watch 2 or 3 precious seconds tick away while she summons her hadouken energy before you can even input attacks for the Hex. Like maybe that's part of the challenge but then it's like. Well now i don't want to bother with my hex, which would have helped me clear the encounter sooner.....