The Issue with Armor

[KyoPewz]

So Armor is pretty much useless, especially at higher curse difficulty where you would think you would need it. The issue is it scales in percentages, non linearly and it doesn't scale very much. if you take a regular 8 Armor Passive, you only increase the armor damage reduction by like 2-5 percent depending on how low it is to start with. Given the massive damage you take from elites and bosses at higher curse difficulty compared to your HP, this ends up being negligible.

So, let's say you're taking a 60 damage hit, which is reasonable in high curse difficulty, that increase will have reduced the damage by 2-3, which, when you consider that we only have about 100-150 HP Unless you've heavily invested in it. Doesn't matter at all. You could only take 3 60 damage hits before, and you can still only take 3 57 damage hits now. The Level of Investment needed to see any sort of return on Armor requires both too much Armor and too much HP. So you're way better off just spamming damage and spamming the space bar.

Block scales just as poorly but obviously has the added benefit of negating an entire attack when it does go off so it's a lot better. The Flat Damage Reduction passive sort of has the same issue but at least that one is better at negating small damage like poison, random small fry damage and bombers. So I think that's fine as it is.

I think Armor and even Block should scale a little better so that they can feel like worthwhile investments. Maybe adjust the curve so its a lot better at early percentages but scales worse at higher. Or add a maximum cap if you dont want people to get too tanky.

Side note, not to ask for more screen clutter, but a little graphic when Block does proc would be great, just a little white flash or a shield on your character or something. Maybe show it in the damage numbers but crossed out or line through'ed as well.

[Managedant]

Armor feels good until just when the second set of lords spawn where, because you’ve invested in armor instead of damage, you will now spend 10 minutes fighting a pack of lords, just to have even more spawn because you’re still killing enemies.

[Sombrero]

Honestly there's just a major balancing issue with curses in general.

There's too many enemies, their move/attack speed increase way too drastically, they deal way too much damage. It becomes a sudden death where if you don't dodge everything you get one shotted pretty much constantly and it makes the very few (2 as far as I know) healing spells way more useful than anything else in the game as long as you don't get one shotted (which is somehow possible with very high health).

I hope that the devs will manage to rework everything by the end of early access because the game is fun, but I still saying that the game gets less and less fun as difficulty goes up and it's not because it's challenging it's just because it's frustrating and less fair. And that never feels right.

[Rathmun]

Originally posted by Sombrero:

Honestly there's just a major balancing issue with curses in general.

There's too many enemies, their move/attack speed increase way too drastically, they deal way too much damage. It becomes a sudden death where if you don't dodge everything you get one shotted pretty much constantly and it makes the very few (2 as far as I know) healing spells way more useful than anything else in the game as long as you don't get one shotted (which is somehow possible with very high health).

I hope that the devs will manage to rework everything by the end of early access because the game is fun, but I still saying that the game gets less and less fun as difficulty goes up and it's not because it's challenging it's just because it's frustrating and less fair. And that never feels right.

And even the healing spells are useless when you get into endless/overlord, because the devs don't know how percentages work.

Additively stacking percentage debuffs are INSANE for the same reason that multiplicatively stacking percentage buffs are insane. When you go from endless 3 to endless 4, you go from a 30% to a 40% debuff, but it's NOT a ten percent loss. Sure, you're losing another ten percent of the healing you had before entering endless/overlord, but you're losing fourteen percent of what you had left. It's more obvious at higher levels, if you could beat endless 8, you'd lose HALF of the healing you had left when you went through the portal to 9. (20% left to 10% left)

[Code:Ao Vivia Cxv009]

The density and spam at higher curse levels has been a turn off for me. I enjoyed the game before the big release and as i played more and went up in curse and found ok everything moves super fast..hits like a truck and the floor is spammed with junk all match long so your having to endlessly move aimlessly around the map; i just grew more and more disinterested in playing on higher curses in general
As for the Point of this thread i'll say the same..normally in games like this your best off going offense 99% of the time unless the game makes a decent system to scale off of defense or skills based around it. This game doesn't have a system based on defensive skills..its more offered as filler stats you can get but dont do much for you overall. You have the small instances of a skill or two that scales with Hp or armor..but even then your best off just using it on a naturally high Hp/Armor class and let that be your scaling over actually investing in any during the actual game.
So overall i would recommend not putting much in the way of armor or at least getting out of the negatives for some classes who have garbage armor so your at least not getting one shotted by stuff. Think long term balance will be needed and curses re looked at in terms of how to balance or make interesting without it being just a ♥♥♥♥ storm of spam all over the screen from mobs on top of other things.

One idea i had before i go was maybe beyond the balancing aspect of things is make it like a interactive type map or add stuff for yourself in the form of allies. Such as...the turret things that spawn..maybe have allied based ones that can spawn at higher curse levels ( to add some form of DPS; maybe even add it as a default mechanic and add skill choices for it etc ). Also the idea of maybe hero mobs that can spawn for you ( dont respawn; one time spawns that last until they die more less ). You could make these things a permanent addition or my idea being more a thing that only happens as you go thru portals to play longer so it gives you a reason to play maps beyond the first stage so players actually indulge in the mechanic of delving deeper knowing they'll get new things that dont happen playing only one map such as allied mobs or turrets or skills or unique maps ( similar to whats going on now ) that only show as you progress as a wow i gotta do more stages on my run so i can see <insert idea>.

[Rathmun]

Originally posted by Code:Ao Vivia Cxv009:

One idea i had before i go was maybe beyond the balancing aspect of things is make it like a interactive type map or add stuff for yourself in the form of allies. Such as...the turret things that spawn..maybe have allied based ones that can spawn at higher curse levels ( to add some form of DPS; maybe even add it as a default mechanic and add skill choices for it etc ). Also the idea of maybe hero mobs that can spawn for you ( dont respawn; one time spawns that last until they die more less ). You could make these things a permanent addition or my idea being more a thing that only happens as you go thru portals to play longer so it gives you a reason to play maps beyond the first stage so players actually indulge in the mechanic of delving deeper knowing they'll get new things that dont happen playing only one map such as allied mobs or turrets or skills or unique maps ( similar to whats going on now ) that only show as you progress as a wow i gotta do more stages on my run so i can see <insert idea>.

Or, you know, maps where the terrain isn't only an obstacle for your movement, but the enemies can just shoot right through/over it. Cover is important, but only if it actually provides cover.