Living Safe is Useless

[tindelljk]

The living safe is pretty useless topping out at less than 50k including max unbreakable will when it's possible to break a million gold in a single run later.

[tindelljk]

Oh and in before some braggart tells us how they got 45 million in 1 run.

[Gnodab]

Are you giving 1 million gold to Charon? If you can afford to do that, why are you worrying about gold at all?

If you want to save gold, then why are you giving it to Charon instead of spending it?

And if your Manor is maxed out, and all your equipment and runes too, then all you can do is give your gold to Charon, whereupon the gold you save with Living Safe will never be withdrawn.

THEN the Living Safe will be useless. But not until that point. As such, Living Safe is fine.

[tindelljk]

I did in fact give Charon over a million gold a while ago. Wait till you get to the point where you can dump a million gold in a skill and still not max it. That 50k will really help you then. Especially the 70 levels it added to your tax.

[Jimmy Hunter]

Living safe is plenty helpful during NG, and I'm still finding usage for it through Thread+6.

[lukeliu]

It is designed for beginners who can hardly get enough gold for even a single upgrade. It is expected to be less useful once you are more skillful.

[PapaGiorgio]

I have a hard time imagining that investing gold in upgrading the safe makes sense over pretty much any other option. All it does is make you very slightly more efficient with the last scraps of gold from the previous run, in exchange for a hefty sum of gold upfront and making every upgrade in the future slightly more expensive. If it ever actually pays for itself, it must take a VERY long time to do so.

[Black Captain]

I never rely on the safe. I always spend nearly everything on upgrading. The safe is icing but not the cake.

[RNorthex]

It's an accessibility thing I believe for players who have an even harder time with the game than an average beginner. How much it accomplishes I'm not sure, especially since house rules will almost certainly have more impact.

[fuchsohnehalstuch]

It may be an option if you struggle just to buy a single upgrade, but I also think that usually it is not a good thing to invest in. You raise labor costs just to safe a very small amount of leftover money. The money you safed wouldn't even have been wasted without the safe, as it would still have been good for charon's charity.

It usually is the last thing I fully upgrade.

[Jacob]

Players who aren't particularly good at the game and die often RELY on the safe in order to upgrade at all and get the handicap they need to advance.

Yes, this comes at the cost of more expensive upgrades far later. But if those particular players ever make it to that point, then the safe did the job it was meant for.

If you are experienced with platformers and can reliably make a decent income in each run, then upgrades on the safe are a waste of time. But if you are ever at a point where you almost never get enough gold in a given run to buy an upgrade, then investing in the safe after any run where you miraculously do pull in a large haul helps you to progress.

Doing a handful of suicide runs to pile gold up for an upgrade is more economical for sure. But again... it is meant for a specific crowd of players who lack skill and patience. Those people aren't likely to be willing to do runs just for gold to toss at the safe for a particular big ticket item.

[MadCrabPrime]

also isn't there a stat increase from giving charon gold, the safe keeps tack of that

[PapaGiorgio]

Originally posted by Jacob:

Players who aren't particularly good at the game and die often RELY on the safe in order to upgrade at all and get the handicap they need to advance.

Yes, this comes at the cost of more expensive upgrades far later. But if those particular players ever make it to that point, then the safe did the job it was meant for.

If you are experienced with platformers and can reliably make a decent income in each run, then upgrades on the safe are a waste of time. But if you are ever at a point where you almost never get enough gold in a given run to buy an upgrade, then investing in the safe after any run where you miraculously do pull in a large haul helps you to progress.

Doing a handful of suicide runs to pile gold up for an upgrade is more economical for sure. But again... it is meant for a specific crowd of players who lack skill and patience. Those people aren't likely to be willing to do runs just for gold to toss at the safe for a particular big ticket item.

If someone normally doesn't bring in big piles of gold during a run, the worst thing they could do if they do end up with a big haul is to spend it on safe upgrades that don't even increase their power at all. There is pretty much always an upgrade you can buy to spend down to almost 0 gold.

If someone was struggling, I'd suggest they'd invest in vitality and armor upgrades instead for sure. You can be very tanky in this game if you so choose, even up to NG+20.

Safe upgrades are a trap, ESPECIALLY for players that don't make it very far during runs. They are the group of people that lose the most for throwing their money away and not even getting any more powerful for it.

The math on the upgrades just doesn't check out for any use case I can think of.

[Dog]

Also theres the gold the safe takes not going toward charon's bonuses. Id rather him get it all than save 1500 in the box. The only thing the safe is good for is seeing where Im at regarding charons bonuses.

[gibbousmoon100]

I agree with PapaGiorgio and Dog: The opportunity cost alone makes the Safe a noobtrap in most scenarios. Much like choosing anything other than gold gain upgrades in the castle, once they are unlocked. (Though I can certainly understand the intended purpose of the safe.)

This is likely connected to the specifics of the game's balance. It is exceedingly simple to clear enough rooms to get the gold needed to upgrade a stat which will enhance survivability. And such stats are always superior, since a bigger safe does not equate to bigger money.

[RNorthex]

Hm, I don't normally do suggestions, but what if the amount of money it held onto could not be spent, but with a really high interest rate could be found in the wild for the next heir?

Perhaps that could also incentivise players to not throw a character into retirement right away to choose something else and try to make the next heir work, however difficult it may be and provide an option for daring veterans to just throw all the cash into the safe and upgrading it, to see if they can really amp up the gold gain by just trying to get to the safe.

Alternatively a variation of this that would keep onto the cash in higher capacities, but would release it once a NG cycle is beaten.