Gemstone rewards should increase with floors

[Tinytim]

I really don't get why gemstones are so scarse. The upgrades I have left are in the range of thousands upon thousands, yet my average gemstone earning is somewhere between 80-200 per run depending on fishes and troves. A few times I've gone for + gems and darkness boons and gotten 400 in a run, but I'm still not understanding why the rewards stay the same regardless of floor. Regular boons increase in tier and quality as you progress, with most boons being rare or better at Elysium, yet a room with gemstones has 5... 5 measly gemstones. Darkness you get enough of if you just go for a heat you've beaten already, or one where you died before the end, and take as much +gems and darkness as you can get. I got 500 darkness from the Elysium boss fight alone once. But gems... The best you can get is the 75 gemstone Trove, maybe multiplied by 4 if you've gotten 2 chaos boons + the poseidon one. But then you are most likely sacrificing your run for the bonus gemstones.

[Specific Beef]

Good idea. I feel like there must be some story bits behind getting the portrait of Nyx, since it's so expensive, and the gold pillars and things like that: maybe by displaying sets of "bone" renovations at once? But I can't even experiment given that I've been playing for ~130h between the main install and the beta and I'm still so far away from completing renovations. I've only got two Fates left to satisfy, and a couple more steps to forge full bonds with my last two gods, so you'd think the renovations would be near completion now too.

[Tinytim]

I've gotten to having only 7 fates left or so, done a lot of runs where I've gotten +100-300% gem and darkness pickups, and I still just look at the renovation costs and go "... sigh... yeah... this ain't happening in a while...."

[Specific Beef]

Originally posted by Tinytim:

I've gotten to having only 7 fates left or so, done a lot of runs where I've gotten +100-300% gem and darkness pickups, and I still just look at the renovation costs and go "... sigh... yeah... this ain't happening in a while...."

You can speed it up quite a bit by going for whichever weapon is offering the gem bonus that round. I hadn't really been bothering with this that much until recently because I didn't realise how bad it was going to be, and I thought there would be tons of gems like there is of Darkness. But I'm trying to do that now, since I realise that if I'd been doing it from the beginning I'd be in a much better place.

I don't know if they thought we'd be going, "Wow, gem bonus! I'm definitely using this weapon" every time or what. It's hard to tell what a developer is assuming about their own game and how players will react to it. If they don't know, the experience as the player is that gems are the least desirable pickup. For a huge chunk of the game, all you really want is Darkness and keys. Then the game makes you especially want Darkness by giving you a health bar increase and a small health top-up. Eventually you don't even need Darkness because you've maxed all the stats you like, and you're *still* collecting Darkness during runs to extend your health. You might be looking at gems too, but really you're thinking, "I'd like to get gems, but I really want gold so that I'm never unable to buy anything at Charon's shop and so that I have the most boons I can get". So bonus gems are totally disincentivised. to the point that the offer on the weapons doesn't look as important as it is presumably meant to.

[Anderson]

I would like to see more ways to earn Gems during a run, in a way that sacrifices other rewards. Like grabbing a boon from Poseidon that just makes you find more Gems.
A simple solution could just be to offer more Gems the higher your Heat is. Say, each Heat level gives +10% more Gems. So for those crazy people who run 20+ Heat Runs, a Trove could reward 150+ Gems. Or have a keepsake that makes you find more rewards (similar to Dusa, but for Gems instead of Health).

[Tinytim]

Originally posted by Luxury Malcolm:

You can speed it up quite a bit by going for whichever weapon is offering the gem bonus that round. I hadn't really been bothering with this that much until recently because I didn't realise how bad it was going to be, and I thought there would be tons of gems like there is of Darkness. But I'm trying to do that now, since I realise that if I'd been doing it from the beginning I'd be in a much better place.

I only go for the bonus weapon. That way I get a lot of variation. So, every single run I've done has had the weapon bonus.

[Tinytim]

Originally posted by Luxury Malcolm:

If they don't know, the experience as the player is that gems are the least desirable pickup. For a huge chunk of the game, all you really want is Darkness and keys. Then the game makes you especially want Darkness by giving you a health bar increase and a small health top-up. Eventually you don't even need Darkness because you've maxed all the stats you like, and you're *still* collecting Darkness during runs to extend your health. You might be looking at gems too, but really you're thinking, "I'd like to get gems, but I really want gold so that I'm never unable to buy anything at Charon's shop and so that I have the most boons I can get". So bonus gems are totally disincentivised. to the point that the offer on the weapons doesn't look as important as it is presumably meant to.

Amen. Darkness gives me health. 5 darkness pickups in a row is a centaur heart. Gems give me.... 20 obol? Really? I only ever go for gems if the choice is an elite gem room vs a normal darkness room, and I have at least 80% more gems and darkness, and even then it's a close call between the two.

[The Comedian]

Worse yet, you can get a lot of darkness from doing lower heats, where it replaces the Titan's Blood rewards, no such thing for the gems. It is also the lowest item on the resource totem pole, meaning that you can't transform something else into the gems at the broker, aside from an occasional, and usually horrible, special deal. I have, like, 200 of keys at this point, I'd craft them into gems in a heartbeat, even at a low 1 to 2 rate.

[Sir Chaos]

The utter uselessness of gems is a joke in this game. There is a quest and some diamonds for building, and some few easy upgrades, and a whole lot of questionable expenditures that do absolutely nothing. The grind for some diamonds is better used raising heat for more diamonds and making other achievements.

Personally I get annoyed with pointless puff in games. I have no intention whatsoever to grind for ever in the name of a painting to pass by. Were it MY game every build would do something, or at least contribute to something. Like if you fill out all the extras on the grill then the cook ghosts deliver you tiny foods every once in awhile, maybe.

[Specific Beef]

Originally posted by Sir Chaos:

The utter uselessness of gems is a joke in this game. There is a quest and some diamonds for building, and some few easy upgrades, and a whole lot of questionable expenditures that do absolutely nothing. The grind for some diamonds is better used raising heat for more diamonds and making other achievements.

Personally I get annoyed with pointless puff in games. I have no intention whatsoever to grind for ever in the name of a painting to pass by. Were it MY game every build would do something, or at least contribute to something. Like if you fill out all the extras on the grill then the cook ghosts deliver you tiny foods every once in awhile, maybe.

I know it's silly, but I absolutely love this kind of stuff. I really like changing an environment from one thing into something else, particularly when you're making it better. And the bats give you an opportunity to look on your work from above.

It does make a little bit of difference, at least in hearing new conversation from characters about what you've done. But yeah, it would be nice if it did something bigger. It's possible that some renovations already did something: for instance, does learning to play the harp contribute to the Orpheus/Eurydice development? I'm not sure because I was pushing so much renovation and story at the same time.

[Anderson]

Gems probably should not be offered at all, since it is such a pointless reward. Given that they are useless during a run, there should be some more optional stuff (like Troves) you can do to earn more Gems. So those who don't really care about how the House of Hades looks don't get annoyed when the only reward is 5 gems (yes, you can get 20 gold, but that's a lot less good than, say, 5 extra health or a free powerup.)