My thoughts on the "balance" update posted today.

[Zero]

Items can only be used with the forge one time
-So "no fun allowed" now, huh? Forge upgrades aren't even that strong and they let you use the equipment that you WANT to use instead of being forced to swap out for something you don't want just because it's a higher rarity.

King 700 -> 750 damage -now summons more frequently and summons hare defenders
-Are you kidding me? EVERYONE HATES THIS BOSS. Why are you buffing him?? He needs to be NERFED. He is OVERLOADED. He is IMPOSSIBLE TO DEFEAT without CERTAIN ITEMS.

Snakes and Cobras now spawn with hare defenders
-Really?? Please tell me this is just Snake+Hare and/or Cobra+Hare, because if this is the Snake+Cobra encounter and you're ADDING a Hare, I'm just going to uninstall until passive damage gets reworked.

[Mirinth]

Escrito originalmente por Jas:

Escrito originalmente por Zero:

Items can only be used with the forge one time
-So "no fun allowed" now, huh? Forge upgrades aren't even that strong and they let you use the equipment that you WANT to use instead of being forced to swap out for something you don't want just because it's a higher rarity.

King 700 -> 750 damage -now summons more frequently and summons hare defenders
-Are you kidding me? EVERYONE HATES THIS BOSS. Why are you buffing him?? He needs to be NERFED. He is OVERLOADED. He is IMPOSSIBLE TO DEFEAT without CERTAIN ITEMS.

Snakes and Cobras now spawn with hare defenders
-Really?? Please tell me this is just Snake+Hare and/or Cobra+Hare, because if this is the Snake+Cobra encounter and you're ADDING a Hare, I'm just going to uninstall until passive damage gets reworked.

Sorry if things were not more clear! We made a number of changes to the testing branch but they hadn't been moved to the main branch yet. We just moved things over to the main branch today! So give it a try, in our playtesting King is actually a lot easier than he used to be. He no longer stacks spikes! And Snakes and Cobras add much less poison.

As for the forges, I hear you. We may revisit this idea. It can be fun to use lots of weird forges! But we found that after a forge or two on a weapon you were very discouraged from changing your equipment and it could get boring. We changed a lot of the balance so things should be a bit easier now despite fewer forge buffs.

Let us know what you think! We are definitely listening and aware that the Discord is not representative of all players! :)

The only part I have been annoyed at so far is the forge change. xD I liked making a beautiful shiv. Maybe a limit of like 4 forges on one item or something? They already cost a decent amount of money for maybe +2 damage though. So I'd recommend either lowering the costs dramatically but keeping them limited to one, buffing them slightly to make up for the only one forge per item, or maybe make it cost more per rarity instead but remove the limit again. (So like legendary items cost more to forge than a common would. That way you enable weaker weapons but limit absurdity with high tier ones.)

[LHGreen]

Escrito originalmente por BrenTenkage:

in the defense of this change, on one hand I do like the idea of building up a weapon but I understand that balance wise it does break the game and it reduces the use of some weapons, on the other hand, the forge building up items is an extremely important part of the meta

I can't help noticing that, with only one forge upgrade per weapon, it becomes yet another advantage cleavers and arrows have over other weapons.

Escrito originalmente por Jas:

But we found that after a forge or two on a weapon you were very discouraged from changing your equipment and it could get boring.

But as things currently are, we don't really have the space to carry around extra items or suddenly switch weapons/tactics/builds in the middle or end of a run. We're already carefully deliberating on what to take or sacrifice, and I for one find myself often passing up clothing because it takes up 4 spaces and doesn't have nearly enough benefit. If we want to make something that's actually viable, we often have to commit to it, with only a little room for flexibility or anything superfluous, let alone having any opportunity for such sudden change.

And something else I've noticed is that a max of 5 vertical spaces is too slim. The packs need to have at least 6, maybe 7 vertical spaces, even if that means making it narrower than 5x11, like 6x10 or 7x9. It may even help solve the problem of not having enough space in general, and would help balance out the slightly overpowered gloves.

Escrito originalmente por BrenTenkage:

Maybe while you are at it, a way to make our own custom game mode, maybe with some simple "key phrases" like more luck, percent of damage boost or lessoned

There is gonna be something called a "creative mode", and modding will be supported.

[Tackles]

After playing the change for several games last night, my takeaway is that it simply invalidates "bad" forges. Meaning, if you get a forge that doesn't have any of the "meta" offerings, such as Haste to shield, Energy to clothing, or a specific weapon buff for your build, it's best to simply skip the forge. It discourages playing around with sub-meta picks, because once you apply a bad forge buff to a piece of gear, that's it. That gear is locked forever.

[Zero]

Escrito originalmente por Jas:

Sorry if things were not more clear! We made a number of changes to the testing branch but they hadn't been moved to the main branch yet. We just moved things over to the main branch today! So give it a try, in our playtesting King is actually a lot easier than he used to be. He no longer stacks spikes! And Snakes and Cobras add much less poison.

As for the forges, I hear you. We may revisit this idea. It can be fun to use lots of weird forges! But we found that after a forge or two on a weapon you were very discouraged from changing your equipment and it could get boring. We changed a lot of the balance so things should be a bit easier now despite fewer forge buffs.

Let us know what you think! We are definitely listening and aware that the Discord is not representative of all players! :)

Oh, I was not aware of those changes to King and the poison on Snakes/Cobras. I do remember reading something about those being changed, but I don't think the notes said exactly how they were changed before your clarification. Thank you for clarifying that! That makes those specific changes much less of an issue than I had originally thought they would be.

That's a fair point, but I think that some of the forge options might need to be buffed after this change. One point of poison is basically useless and two points of burn is the same deal. Three points of damage is always going to be a better forge option than those two with single-limited forges. One haste also doesn't do a whole lot if you can only apply it to a shield once, but I understand how that one needs to be carefully monitored as not to get out of hand.

[Tackles]

Zero, you might want to check your math on the +3 white damage being better than +1 poison. That's only generally true on battles that last only 1 or 2 turns. On fights that last longer than that, and especially when you can deliver more than one hit of a poisoned weapon per turn, poison applies exponentially more damage. It also bypasses armor. It also denies enemies a final turn to attack when the poison is high enough to kill them, giving it a defensive aspect that regular white damage weapons don't enjoy.

Give it a shot. Poison builds are among the best in the game. Even better with the insane buff to poison whetstone.

[Zero]

Right, I know poison is good in boss battles. I was thinking about normal encounters. Your run is pretty much dead in the water if you're relying on +1 poison to kill normal enemies through armor. I think +2 poison would be better, but +3 would probably be too much.

[Tackles]

You're right in a sense. On its own, adding +1 poison to any random weapon is not going to be an instant win button. If you're talking about general utility on floors 1-9, then sure, +3 damage might outshine +1 poison in most floor encounters excluding bosses. It's easier to use, it's easier to build into "normal" loadouts.

However, if you know how to use it, +1 poison on a build that leverages just one other point of poison from some other source, can spiral wildly out of control and be just as powerful as a white damage build, while also allowing you to play defensively with heavy shield play & stacking thorns. A standard +3 damage build struggles to maintain a good defensive setup because if you're using 2 energy to defend, you only get to attack once. One attack from a weapon with +2 poison on it (1 from Forge, 1 from elsewhere) will do a total of 3 damage anyways. And by turn 2, you've already outrun the plain white damage build.

Try it with a crossbow and a couple short arrows with +1 poison. It's freaking sick.

[UjiKarm]

I have to agree that the forge restriction is the biggest thing I dislike about that update and hope they either improve the forging mechanic or lift the restriction

[Rathmun]

If they just don't like the way it locks people into a single weapon, let the smith destroy an old item to transfer its buffs to a new item. Just making it a single-use-per-item really hurts most of the utility of the forge.

[RageNRaven]

i hate the forge update so much i love this game it was helping my mental health but this makes it not fun n I dont want to play it with this change at least give a game mode or option to enable/disable this please, better yet have a coustomisable game mode so we can make it as easy or hard as the individual prefers

[An'Mar]

I also very DISLIKE the new Forge limitations, makes no sense. Why are we no longer allowed to build up an awsome piece bit by bit via forging.

---

1. Not any forge you find would contribute to that anyway (missing gold or bad choises).
   
   
2. Forges arent that common and even if you quickly run out of money.
   
   
3. Forges are (where) the biggest gold sink, traders rarely have something interresting.
   
   
4. Most forge upgrades aren't that usefull as a single upgrade anyway "+1dmg" "+1Poison" etc... they become nice if you stack them otherwise pointless.
   
   
5. Things like the "1+Energy on Clothes" could have a tag "can only be aplied once on a piece" to limit the powerfull forgings instead of nutering them all.

[Tally]

the forge is really the only thing I am a bit upset with and I can understand why the change happened as I've had purposeful and accidental runs where I just end up using the wooden sword the whole time due to forges popping up.
I thinkk it should go on rarity
common 1 forge
uncomon 1~2 forge
rare 2~3
legendary 4~

♥♥♥ how long do you expect a blacksmith to put work into a wooden sword or a bent club before he breaks it on accident, compared to a big metal legendary sword or a bow made of steel and magic
but that's already a bit much for a small mechanic

also relating to other posts on adding a game mode i disagree, too many reandom game modes for simple mechanic on/off switches seems bad at most I'd prefer a check list on some random menu to just toggle the on/off mechanics but that's time consuming to rework code to make the checks for those

[Phsycosis]

Most of the changes that came through today were significant downgrades in play style. Endless is now completely unbeatable due to multi forging being removed and the bosses haven't been nerfed at all. 5x5 is also nearly impossible now and requires incredibly specific items.

This hasn't improved the game status but hopefully this can all be revisited in the future as the balance is ironed out. Also, Legendary weapons shouldn't be "slightly better" or in most cases worse than their common counterparts due to extreme lack of mana generation. Relics are all nearly unpickable except for the gem one which literally makes the pickaxe gamebreakingly good.

Also the ductape still doesn't seem to work as implied on the item. Basically it's a 17 gold waiting item to sell (which merchants seem to be incredibly rare since the update which means farming / saving gold and rare items in slots on restricted backpacks isn't possible)

Here's hoping in the coming weeks that things get better

[Tackles]

Escrito originalmente por Taliru:

the forge is really the only thing I am a bit upset with and I can understand why the change happened as I've had purposeful and accidental runs where I just end up using the wooden sword the whole time due to forges popping up.
I thinkk it should go on rarity
common 1 forge
uncomon 1~2 forge
rare 2~3
legendary 4~

Outstanding idea. I love it!

[LHGreen]

Escrito originalmente por Phsycosis:

Endless is now completely unbeatable due to multi forging being removed and the bosses haven't been nerfed at all.

Bosses actually have been nerfed. Also, of course endless is unbeatable, it's ENDLESS.

Escrito originalmente por Phsycosis:

Relics are all nearly unpickable

Not true. Most are pretty good despite the consequences, and only the ones without penalties tend to be lackluster. They're very powerful, if you know how to use them.