I struggle to spend my pineapples in every single run.

[skiptis]

Last run I won with nearly 3000 unspent because, well, why would I ever want to spend them on diluting my deck with cards that are objectively worse than the ones I already have?

I'm having a good time with the game so far, but coming from the almost perfectly balanced Slay the Spire, the economy being this much out of whack is rather odd. Actively skipping pineapple nodes and only clicking the shop because of Red Pineapple feels weird.

Are there more things to spend them on locked behind progression? I've won about 5-6 runs so far.

[Clockwork]

Yeah I always have a lot of unspent pineapples too. I always buy every "Animal" I find though and the card that puts like 5-6vuln on every enemy is usually worth it.

[Paulie Don't Surf]

Hey you two,

This is some great feedback. Currency balancing was incredibly hard for us to measure or predict in the testing periods we had pre launch.

Once we altered ANY portion of the meta, be it card functions, their stats toward those behaviors, the pattern of rewards and events etc, pineapples really just had one question we had to make sure was right, and that was, were players getting enough?

From what you're saying here and from what we're feeling in our own playtesting, players are getting TOO much. This seems like something we need to adjust or provide an alternative system to inherit the leftover pineapples.

We'll look into this one.

Thanks gang

PW

[V-Rabb [StD]]

I know it'd be adding mechanics but having a system that throws a portion of your unused pineapples towards unlocks or starting cards in your deck would be neat!

[skiptis]

Appreciate the reply, Paulie. :)

I think the ~two first shops during a run are generally fine, so if you want to adjust pineapple values I'd look mainly at the end of Act 2 and onwards. Late planet rewards in particular seems like an outlier on top of my head, I'm not entirely sure how their rewards scale (+50 per planet done?) but I've seen 300-350 from some of the last ones, which is a huge amount for a single node.

Another factor I think indirectly has a fairly large effect on pineapple value is that events probably offer too many card removes as it currently stands.

I'm specifically talking about Pineapple God and Gaia's Altar, both of which offer effectively three card removes each, and can show up multiple times a run (I've even had one act with two Pineapple God events). This devalues both shop removals (which probably also need to scale in price per use, same way it does in StS) and adding cards in general.

Gaia at least has an element of risk since the creature you get is random, but Pineapple God actually giving you money for 3x card removes seems absolutely bonkers, given how strong card removals are. If Pineapple God *cost* 200 per remove, I'd still consider it a very good node.

Another factor is that a lot of shop cards just... aren't very good. There are some with universal positive effects, like Animal, but generally at a point where you can afford to buy multiple shop cards, you do not actually want to.

So basically, it's not just a matter of getting too many pineapples, there's also a lack of meaningful things to spend them on.

[Best Protagonist]

I think a major contributor to the pineapple economy being busted that hasn't been mentioned is that the shops only offer cards, removal and healing. Cards and removal don't really matter once you have a good deck going. What's missing is being able to purchase promotions and relics, which would really make me excited when a shop becomes available.

To skiptis point about Gaia and Pinapple God nodes, I would hate to see them nerfed, not because they're not strong, but because they actually reward you for carrying around cards you don't need, which I find thematically appropriate when the two main card types are trash and junk. They're nodes that suck to run into when you have a lean, effective deck which is really unique in this genre.

[ul0270261]

I agree with the last comment, being able to buy some promotions and talents for a good amount of pineapples would be a good way to make players excited when entering a shop and to spend their pineapples.
Maybe there are too many fixed cards too? I felt I saw always the same cards in the shop, some variation there wouldn't hurt.

And for the events it's true that they offer a lot of remove but if you don't find them then the shop remove is insufficient to get rid of your starting cards, so a bit of balance could be good there, for example one less remove for these event and maybe two removals per shop (at a scaling price maybe).

It would put more choice to the player like; do I really want this talent but won't be able to afford removals, or should I take 1 promotion and 1 removal, or some random card that fits my deck.

Just some thoughts, good luck devs for making this game a polished gem, it has a lot of potential and is already fun to play!

[denna3]

Version 1.x BTW - maybe this should have been an E.A. title?