Leveling up makes you... weaker?

[Khalgar]

As you unlock more and more upgrades (which are not any stronger than the base upgrades), it becomes harder and harder to have upgrades that synergize.

With Beowulf, I feel much weaker now that I leveled him than I was at start (where I could easily choose good upgrades; now I am often given 2 trash upgrades because the pool increased a lot).

I think progression should be looked at. If the pool of upgrades increases, the number of upgrades you can choose from should also increase somehow, otherwise its pretty much a straight up nerf as you level up.

[Boss Tripp]

Interesting, never really thought about this.

[A.J]

All these kind of games have this. You get a select number of upgrades but as your unlocks increase each individual thing has a less chance to spawn.

Usually they offset this by implementng reroll, banish and mechanics like that to give the player some control of the pool itself.

[O_o Moonpie]

yeah would be good if we get some things to offset it. At the start maybe 4 talents also nice, otherwhise it ends in restart restart restart only.

[Supernatural Cookie]

Honestly I think it'd help immensely if they at least allowed us to pick the starting ability from the entire pool of starters. Would allow some level of customization at the start of each run, rather than treat it like a normal upgrade. Or, barring that, have some kinda weight system in place to weigh synergies higher and make them more likely to pop up.

[TheBoxOfWar]

I see what you mean, and I agree that the expanding pool due to character level-ups can dilute certain opportunities. If they don't give us more options to select from, what do you guys think of a Promotion/Demotion system similar to the game Star Renegades? For those who don't know what I mean, before each run you could talk to a quartermaster and Promote, Demote, and Favorite a small quantity of specific items. Favorited items would be in your inventory at the beginning of the run at their weakest form (similar to ravenwood's starting upgrades except they were intentionally weak because you got to choose) which could help give your early game a little boost. Promoted items would be more likely to appear during the run (although not guaranteed,) allowing the player to search for certain synergies whilst still allowing room for randomness and needing to adapt to RNG. Demoted items would never appear during the run.

What do you guys think? Considering loot is player-specific, I think it would be an interesting idea that could help alleviate the aforementioned predicament with the loot pool. Because it makes your preferred strategies more LIKELY but not GUARANTEED, it also allows for experimentation and adaptation, like picking wyrmfire trail instead of double shock on Beowulf because you didn't see double shock (both leaning towards a power-centric build, but in a different way.)

[Steinar]

I don't agree with this perception. The Upgrades I get from levels are competitive with the ones I start with, and allow me to get some sick combos I couldn't get at the beginning.

Sure, there might exist some Upgrades that are lackluster, and it would be fun to discuss which ones we think those are. Because people haven't played enough to experience all possible combos, and what you might think is lackluster might actually be really powerful in combination with something else.

Edit: Does getting more Upgrades reduce your chances of getting to play with the build you want? YES. I suspect that's the issue here, not that the additional Upgrades are weaker.

[Supernatural Cookie]

I think when people say they're weaker, they mean in the sense that they don't synnergize as well. Some skills synergize with others, which makes them overall stronger and a better pick. By themselves, all skills are equal, but its when they're done in conjunction that they become stronger.

The problem is frankly the timer is so low and levels so infrequent that you get a total of 5 chances to choose between two options in hopes to get stuff that pairs together well enough. Which you're likely to at least get one or two things at minimum between that and items.

[TheBoxOfWar]

Originally posted by Steinar:

I don't agree with this perception. The Upgrades I get from levels are competitive with the ones I start with, and allow me to get some sick combos I couldn't get at the beginning.

Sure, there might exist some Upgrades that are lackluster, and it would be fun to discuss which ones we think those are. Because people haven't played enough to experience all possible combos, and what you might think is lackluster might actually be really powerful in combination with something else.

Edit: Does getting more Upgrades reduce your chances of getting to play with the build you want? YES. I suspect that's the issue here, not that the additional Upgrades are weaker.

I agree with this. Some of the charm, in my opinion, I've found in the games when I didn't get my favorite build and had to experiment with something new. Rarely did I feel less powerful, rather, different, which should be fine.

[Nidhöggr]

I was about to post the same regarding Snow Queen, the original level 1-2 skills are much stronger than the level 3-5 skills. Adding to it, because you now have a larger pool of skills, you have less chances to get the decent skill upgrades. There should be an option to at least limit the pool of upgrades you get (like custom mode in dead cells) or a High/Med/Low Priority feature (like Anvil).

[Quiet Lover]

problem is too weak options. So just buff\rework bad ones. Anyway if you lvl up well you got a lot of good ones.

[Steinar]

Originally posted by Nidhöggr:

I was about to post the same regarding Snow Queen, the original level 1-2 skills are much stronger than the level 3-5 skills. Adding to it, because you now have a larger pool of skills, you have less chances to get the decent skill upgrades. There should be an option to at least limit the pool of upgrades you get (like custom mode in dead cells) or a High/Med/Low Priority feature (like Anvil).

I have the opposite experience on Snow Queen.
Hail Storm is definitely a lvl 1 favorite of mine, and it gets really fun when I pair it with Frost Surge, Shattering Blast, or Frost Queen. But I can mix these Upgrades any way I want and still do great, which means they're competitive, but different.

Another Upgrade that's become must-have on high Nightmare difficulties is Wind Shield since healing orbs barely heal at all. This Upgrade felt weak at first, but now I want it every run.

A run always ends up with me becoming strong, but not always the same way. Either I get to Upgrade one ability a lot, which makes it really strong compared to the other abilities. Or I get to Upgrade several abilities just once, making my power more diverse across more abilities. The end result is largely the same. I'm willing to bet an issue here is that people just haven't figured out enough playstyles, and thus devalue good Upgrades because they don't know how good they can be.

[Othello]

The game just needs a Reroll option and it'll be fine.

[Ol'Chum]

I used to think Aladdin was broken because of healing blades. Now I realize he is just fine because most of the time you can't roll them after hitting level 5 with him. Kinda dumb tbh

[Decoy Dan]

It never really makes you weaker, but the problem is it makes you "not strong". Poor synergy in stats aren't usually a game breaker if you're comfortable on the character, but it definitely makes a run feel a little harder.

I suspect that the intention is that once the game is expanded, when the second part of the story is added, that we will get access to the remaining upgrade slots. If you look closely, there is room for several more.

I would like to see a special item in chests that lets you reroll an upgrade, or to buy a single reroll from the shop. Maybe even for killing a miniboss. While I think the current state is fairly good, a little more choice in the RNG would feel nice.

[Lord_Abaddon]

If you're unaware there are 3 seperate pools of perks.

1. the starter perks I believe each character has 4 once you hit lvl 5 with them to choose from you will always get a choice between 2 of these 4 at the start

2. I believe they call it common or general perks. these are the main perks you will see I believe you get 4 choices of these and they come in sets of 2 might be getting my #'s wrong on the amount you get.

3. Ultimate skills. it looks like they're planning 2 per class but only 1 is available now you always get this skill when hitting 5


the Issue most people are probably having is they've found a build that they like and want to play it so they keep trying to get perks for that build and passing up other good perks in hopes of getting the ones they want. Beowulf is probably the character this effects most due to how his wyrm trait works you want to stack as many upgrades onto 1 skill as possible. I had the hardest time being efficient with him due to wanting to get the whirlwind triple explosion I passed up other good perks for his power skill and ended up mediocre. once I started just going with what I was given early on and working off it I found him to be quite effective no matter what.

you really need to think of perks as a roguellite deck building game. when you level up the first 2-3 levels really should define your build if you don't get a upgrade you want at lvl 2 but get one for something else start looking to build into that even if the thing you wanted shows up at lvl 3 ignore it and keep focusing on your build you won't always get what you want but you will get what you need generally. I've gotten every character to lvl 5 and beaten nightmare 7 on them all (9 on aladdin and scarlet). every skill feels viable it's all about changing up your play style and trying new combo's out.

if you want someone who will generally be good no matter what I'd suggest playing scarlet or aladdin. other than some of scarlets special oriented skill all work extremely well together and I imagine a bomb build could be decent as well. Aladdin takes a little more getting used to his darting in and out of combat but his genie generating items and dream shards is probably one of the most busted traits in the game. most of his skills blend pretty well together as well only 1 I don't think is particularly useful and that the increased duration on the thrown blades.