Some thoughts & feedback after several playthroughs

[Coonter Diggs]

First of all, in the sea of soulless "rpgs" where the only build "choice" you have if you want entire screen to explode in blue or red color and nothing short of oneshot can threaten the player this game is an absolute treat.
It is definitely at it's best when you are in a hurry and aiming for sub 4h mark as this is when you are actually have to use what comes your way and don't have luxury to over-optimize.
Also, freaking 10/10 of revenant closets. I struggle to pick the funniest one.


But let's talk issues.

1) Potions
There are simply way too many of them drop, especially in later levels. IMO, droprates should be reduced by at least~15/20%.
But seeing as how there is a lot of whining on the forum, demanding the opposite, it would be nice to have several predetermined barrels scatter across floors before hall of pain, which would drop 1-3 potions each in normal mode only. This should help with onbarding for casual/newbie players.

2) Weapons
2-handers are definite winner here, with every single combat art being very useful, unlike other types.
Bows/crosswobs have exactly one good skill : "piercing shot", everything else is completely useless. "elemental shot" is inconsistent, "multishot" made obsolete with a single affix, "embershot" cost too much and does too little, "ricochet" is a complete meme.
1-handers have really good support arts but ...
Caster off-hands have absolutely nothing despite requiring strength and shields have ... shield bash ? In other words just concentrate, adrenaline and oonga-boonga.
Also jump in quality from panultimate to last tier of equipment is just way too steep, it would be better slightly buff mid-tier items to even things out.

3) Magic
In short, it's awful. Costs way too much. Deals barely any damage. Does not apply on-hit effects. Does not scale with stats (while weapon arts do, and some even double-dip on scaling). And good lord, needing over 70 int for chain lightning HAVE to be a joke, since it just ricochet, but somehow much worse.
Cauldron spells - training wheels ? seem utterly redundant, could be nice if it was optional semi-secret thing and not mandatory pick-up
Fireball - starting wand can oudamage it by level 3, seem to only serve as fix for mage's lack of accuracy early on
Slow & ice floor - should either be much cheaper, last way longer or cover bigger area
Purifying circle - it may seem as it does alright damage, but it is so inconsistent that it is best to be left at level 1 as a tool to pop truth seeker's shield
Airshield & Fireshield - oh look, now shield combat arts don't suck and only costs *looks at the cost* ... nevermind
Summon great snake - little noodle is not so great, when it dies to a single enemy projectile. I can't even tell if those do decent damage or not, they never got to hit anything.
Oaths of Redemption - aka goofy goobers of triangle footstool. Amazing spell at level 1 as it gives you access to disposable meat shields for only 6 mana. Leveling them up seems to noticably improve their damage but not so much survivability, so cost increase might not be worth it. Potentially bugged, as level 5 cost less than level 4
Manashield - considering how much hp it gives you 40 mana is justified. Definitely bugged, as level 5 does not exist. It will require int, eat up a book, all new ones will say "max level" but it will stay at level 4
Poisonous globe - the only offensive magic spell ever worth using for damage. And that taking into account all immune enemies and the fact that it is a dot. Rest are simply that bad
Bloodlust - funny enough, it's gimmick never rarely comes into play since you will only ever need it against elites/bosses, also for some reason it is absurdly rare.
Fire trap - to fix this one it would need to either have several times the radius, making it somewhat decent crowd clearing tool OR damage doubled and arming delay removed so it could used as single target damage by shield users who can affor to just stand there and take hits to keep target on the mine.
Unstable pressure orb - remove it's range gimmick and it would be fine (still much worse than weapon throw or piercing shot, but at least usable)
Chain lightning - maybe if it could "bounce" to a same target at maybe 0,2-0,3 ~ish damage ratio it could become fairly decent single target damage option for mages.
Blinding fog - the odd one, as it is very good for melee but still does not justifies putting points into intelligence, especially considering that you already swimming in good options for melee.

4) Enemies
There is barely a thing to complain here, the roster is genuenly amazing.
- Lower Dungeons 2 might be a bit of a difficulty spike for newer players. I would suggest removing all faceless from it and instead putting them in Hall of Pain ,
That way. you have second main level be focused on dealing mainly with enemy projectiles with only occasioanl rushdown by a fly or two and third level will introduce player to melee enemies with special traits. It could also create scenarios where player's projectile phases through faceless and hit sun cult warrior, speeding him up and thus increasing the pressure.
- Manticores.
I like idea of them being cqc-denial enemies, but they utterly fail at their one job. Very slow movement, non-existent dodge .. and now their slow attack was made even slower ? Are they meant to be just walking hp/mana pots for players with leech ? If anything, their melee should come out MUCH faster, at least on despair. (also that daruma- looking face is absolutely hilarious)
- War Mother.
This one is just walking stat-check. There is no strategy, no counter play, no gimmick. Honestly they would better serve as equivalent of Diablo2's Greater Mummy. Let them buff/heal/ressurect Blood Covens while trying to break line of sight with the player, and IF player gets too close then they jump at them with their devastating melee
- Infestor Phasmid.
I still have no idea what parasites do. Definitely not a threat though.


Some general bugs.
If you load Paladin's encampment after "nightfal" and the load saved game on any other stage, blue ambient lighting will carry over to loaded save.
Reloading the save make corpse in encampment interactible again (the fact that it drops a single thawing potion is such an amazing hint/foreshadowning, btw)
At some point player just loses cauldron spells ... not that it matters but i have no idea if it is a bug or a feature. Healing light always dissapears by the time you reach spire. Dark pact sometimes stays, sometimes vanishes. Loading a save from the one with missing cauldron spell onto one that should still have it will cause spell to disappear in loaded game too.
Loading a save in Skeleton Pit might cause walls to flicker.

Lastly, it would be great to have bosses & enemy variants in bestiary, maybe even with walk cycles / attacks / deaths too ? Pretty please ?

[Mr. Cone]

Good write up. I mirror the sentiment on Potions, they're too abundant and rare gear too scarce.

Didn't see the Spell Thunderdisk in the spells section though. What are your thoughts on that one?

[Coonter Diggs]

Originally posted by Mr. Cone:

Good write up. I mirror the sentiment on Potions, they're too abundant and rare gear too scarce.

Didn't see the Spell Thunderdisk in the spells section though. What are your thoughts on that one?

There are bunch of spells that are just not worth mentioning because their main/only issue is cost/damage ratio. If costs were fixed somewhere at level 2/3 versions and only effect and not cost went up then most would be fine-ish. Adding either ability to trigger on-hit effects or adding mind/int scaling would be great, but not crucial.

As of now, your best bet as a "mage" is to raise your strength to 20 and just throw your staff into every door you open. Sure is good "magic trick"

[osur]

cheers, lots of good stuff

resolved all the bugs you mentioned except the walls flickering one, i'll investigate.
> it would be great to have bosses & enemy variants in bestiary, maybe even with walk cycles / attacks / deaths too ? Pretty please ?
sure, it's on *The List*.

will be using your spell overview (along with more data points / feedbacks) for balancing in the future. you're also one of the rare advocates for Two-Handers - most people ignore them, sadly. they're missing out.

thanks again for the feedback!

[Exeter]

I disagree with magic being weak, its a huge mana hog though. All the extra potion drops made it so I never had a real issue there, I was just turning most of my hp pots into mana when I found a table. Really there's nothing melee can do thats anywhere close to as good at clearing large packs. Piercing shot is decent but theres no stats directly boosting bow damage that I saw. My main 2 damage spells used were thunderdisk and chain lightning at the end with summons out. Early on summons and wand, with thunderdisk for packs works well. End boss needs fixing as well, 3 Oath knights and wand spam completely stun locked the poor guy. I thought it was bugged for about 20 seconds until it finally keeled over. Most of the utility I found kinda useless since summons and running, and just popping potions works better for defense and used mana for damage, add cold damage for slows on wand.

[Coonter Diggs]

Originally posted by Exeter:

I disagree with magic being weak, its a huge mana hog though. All the extra potion drops made it so I never had a real issue there, I was just turning most of my hp pots into mana when I found a table. Really there's nothing melee can do thats anywhere close to as good at clearing large packs. Piercing shot is decent but theres no stats directly boosting bow damage that I saw. My main 2 damage spells used were thunderdisk and chain lightning at the end with summons out. Early on summons and wand, with thunderdisk for packs works well. End boss needs fixing as well, 3 Oath knights and wand spam completely stun locked the poor guy. I thought it was bugged for about 20 seconds until it finally keeled over. Most of the utility I found kinda useless since summons and running, and just popping potions works better for defense and used mana for damage, add cold damage for slows on wand.

That's the issue. If one playstyle is a massive resource hog then it needs to be head and shoulders above the rest, otherwise you have massive balance problem.

Let's looks at little situation:
You have veritable conga line marching at you through the corridor - what do you do ?

Option A : You throw your level 4 thunder disk, which has 1:1 mana:damage ratio and due to level geometry you can only gurantee 1 hit on each enemy with maybe one or two lucky bounces. 15 damage, cool

Option B : you have this default 10 int Athanasy other there who sees a book and asks if it's edible. He also picked up basic white "light crossbow" with 10-15 damage off the ground and shot the line with pirecing shot for 5 mana.

You might already see the problem, but it gets worse.
How do we improve our chances ?
In the first case we can get faster cast rate effect, level up spell to 5 (assuming we find the tome and have enough int to read it) and *maybe* find some items with mana refund effect, which is super rare and seem to average at ~8%.
In the second case, however things are much simpler. Bonus damage, unusual damage range, elemental damage on weapon and/or accessories, it all contributes. So our dumb fighter-man much more likely will shoot for 20-30 rather than 10-15.
And then there is mana leech. Granted, peircing shot is a little odd as it seems that leech doe not proc on the first target, but with minimal roll of 3% if you hit at least 6 targets, then it is completely free. More, and you're gaining rather than spending mana.

And let's not even talk about "hurl weapon" and "mighty slam" it gets depressing comparing those to magic to the point that mana shield + maighty slam is better wizzard than than someone who managed to max out anihilation .

Lastly, why would you even spend any mana when you can just shotgun someone for 60-90 damage with multishot wand. For free.

[Nightsbane]

Disagree on the potion. Only thing I'd want is for potions to stack and purple skulls too.

[ED]

The infestor phasmid's debuff lowers your dodge rating

[LumberJack725]

Dont agree with the write up on bows. My entire first playthrough was with bows and crossbows. Ricochet is useful imo when dealing with enemies that are faster or just as fast as you as you can bounce them off of walls. I also found that most enemy groups would only follow me in groups of two or three, meaning im not getting the best effect out of pierce since it costs that very specific 1 more mana that ricochet. Elemental shot helped me a lot in early game when i had few affixes. Multishot absolutely melted bosses. The only one i didnt really like was explosive shot. it didnt have nearly enough aoe to be useful.

[Exeter]

Originally posted by Coonter Diggs:

Originally posted by Exeter:

I disagree with magic being weak, its a huge mana hog though. All the extra potion drops made it so I never had a real issue there, I was just turning most of my hp pots into mana when I found a table. Really there's nothing melee can do thats anywhere close to as good at clearing large packs. Piercing shot is decent but theres no stats directly boosting bow damage that I saw. My main 2 damage spells used were thunderdisk and chain lightning at the end with summons out. Early on summons and wand, with thunderdisk for packs works well. End boss needs fixing as well, 3 Oath knights and wand spam completely stun locked the poor guy. I thought it was bugged for about 20 seconds until it finally keeled over. Most of the utility I found kinda useless since summons and running, and just popping potions works better for defense and used mana for damage, add cold damage for slows on wand.

That's the issue. If one playstyle is a massive resource hog then it needs to be head and shoulders above the rest, otherwise you have massive balance problem.

Let's looks at little situation:
You have veritable conga line marching at you through the corridor - what do you do ?

Option A : You throw your level 4 thunder disk, which has 1:1 mana:damage ratio and due to level geometry you can only gurantee 1 hit on each enemy with maybe one or two lucky bounces. 15 damage, cool

Option B : you have this default 10 int Athanasy other there who sees a book and asks if it's edible. He also picked up basic white "light crossbow" with 10-15 damage off the ground and shot the line with pirecing shot for 5 mana.

You might already see the problem, but it gets worse.
How do we improve our chances ?
In the first case we can get faster cast rate effect, level up spell to 5 (assuming we find the tome and have enough int to read it) and *maybe* find some items with mana refund effect, which is super rare and seem to average at ~8%.
In the second case, however things are much simpler. Bonus damage, unusual damage range, elemental damage on weapon and/or accessories, it all contributes. So our dumb fighter-man much more likely will shoot for 20-30 rather than 10-15.
And then there is mana leech. Granted, peircing shot is a little odd as it seems that leech doe not proc on the first target, but with minimal roll of 3% if you hit at least 6 targets, then it is completely free. More, and you're gaining rather than spending mana.

And let's not even talk about "hurl weapon" and "mighty slam" it gets depressing comparing those to magic to the point that mana shield + maighty slam is better wizzard than than someone who managed to max out anihilation .

Lastly, why would you even spend any mana when you can just shotgun someone for 60-90 damage with multishot wand. For free.

The point you're are missing with spells is speed. As pointed out theres oodles of potions later so mana becomes almost a non issue. Chain lightning literally will hit everything in a room and sometimes into the next room. While chain lighting is kinda slow, its good in the more open areas. In the closed in spots the enemies will literally line up and follow you and thunder disk casts really quick. I dropped every pack fine up to end game quickly when they were level 5 and this was on despair. Most of the non bosses mobs only have like 100 hp or so at end game it seemed. Run back out door way they all line up thunder disc, large pack dies in 3 seconds. 3 knights wander into room kill off ranged mobs repeat. That was basically my mage experience it was easy and perfectly fine. A wand build would be viable but you have to choose between int and mana recovery and extra damage/accuracy. You won't get both with a build like that.

[Coonter Diggs]

Originally posted by LumberJack725:

Dont agree with the write up on bows. My entire first playthrough was with bows and crossbows. Ricochet is useful imo when dealing with enemies that are faster or just as fast as you as you can bounce them off of walls. I also found that most enemy groups would only follow me in groups of two or three, meaning im not getting the best effect out of pierce since it costs that very specific 1 more mana that ricochet. Elemental shot helped me a lot in early game when i had few affixes. Multishot absolutely melted bosses. The only one i didnt really like was explosive shot. it didnt have nearly enough aoe to be useful.

If you carefully prefire into doorway then yes, most of the time you will only have to deal with couple enemies at the time. But at that point you don't need any skills, especially if you can manage to keep ice as dominant element. (In fact, game is perfectly beatable on IM+despair w/o using any arts or magic if you go with agility focused weaponry, but that's another story). Otherwise, there are plenty of times when you get jumped by big packs.

Elemental shot is just a gamble, you spend mana for potentially nothing. As an example in the game Ed-0 ninja has very similar ability, but holding the skill cycles elemets and press uses it. If you could manualy set it to ice/poison this way while also overriding you damage bonuses then it would have been great.

And if you go with dex+agi that means you can use spears, your best friend against ghostly foes and more cost-efficient face melter against single fat opponent. I will retract my statement on the affix however, since after messing with a goblin a bit more it seems that bows can't have innate multishot. So it definitely have a place, If attack rating allows it, going from softening target with multishot into final blow might be better overall than just spamming final blow. +20 attack rating is really nice when you're going for shorter run though.
It really seems like a lot of people think in a way of only using one weapon when you have two separate weapon sets and most enemies have distinct counters.
A lot of things i've mentioned in the first post are "bad" not because they are "unusable", but rather because they coexist alongside much better alternatives that your character has access to regardless of stat distribution.
Yes, you could see mamoth fly approach and try to angle a richochet for style points ... or just whip out your pointy stick and stab it once. And with melee weapons having higher attack rating and damage one poke is all that it would take.

Originally posted by Exeter:

The point you're are missing with spells is speed. As pointed out theres oodles of potions later so mana becomes almost a non issue. Chain lightning literally will hit everything in a room and sometimes into the next room. While chain lighting is kinda slow, its good in the more open areas. In the closed in spots the enemies will literally line up and follow you and thunder disk casts really quick. I dropped every pack fine up to end game quickly when they were level 5 and this was on despair. Most of the non bosses mobs only have like 100 hp or so at end game it seemed. Run back out door way they all line up thunder disc, large pack dies in 3 seconds. 3 knights wander into room kill off ranged mobs repeat. That was basically my mage experience it was easy and perfectly fine. A wand build would be viable but you have to choose between int and mana recovery and extra damage/accuracy. You won't get both with a build like that.

Goremaker 35 hp and Shield demon is 65 hp
chain lightning is
16/14 damage with 6 bounces @ lvl 3
18/17 8 bounces @ 4
20/20 10 bounces @ 5 (lol can you even afford 72 int on despair)
with improved cast rate effect it has same speed as piercing shot from "normal" attack speed weapon with no agility bonus . It's main draw is that it outright ignores truth seeker's shield.

Just to make things clear, my first though was that magic would be definitive option for fast clear, seeing how it deals fixed damage and ignores accuracy/evasion.
But half of the attempts came to a screeching halt at around Blood Coven's landing. You REALLY need to raid skeleton pit for tomes.
You would need an absolute devil's luck to get phantomise, haste & p.orb or oath w/o sidetracking.

And of course while it does not take much, you still taking *some* time fiddling with inventory and picking extra pots off the floor that you would otherwise ignore

So what speed are we talking about here ?

Despite looking different, ice wave, lightning disk, poison orb & pircing shot do hit more or less same area so main difference is animation speed/cost/damage
lightning disk is fast but expensive and weak, ice wave is weaker seemingly to adjust for slow, poison orb is really strong, but it's a dot so attack speed does not matter.
Speed of Bow/crossbow attacks is affected by agility, so str/dex/vit setup will only be able to do 2 shots for mage's 5, but agility-based charcter will attack just as fast without even needing special item effect.

And on "slow" runs you absolutely can afford attack bonuses for your wand and staff, since mana pool and mana refund are the only effects that would even help you as a caster. Not quite sure what do you mean by "recovery" since mana leech doesn't work on spells, on-kill recovery ? I don't think i ever saw more than +1 mana on kill even on highest tier of items.

Just to hammer point home, i am not attacking anyone for having fun with things that seem fun, regardless of how sub-optimal they are. Only pointing out that certain options might need adjustment. It is entirely up to a developer to decide whenever it is magic that needs a buff or non magic options ar too strong.
Yes, seeing three piglets stunlock final boss is funny. Seeing them all getting killed by a single seeker or bone golem because they collectively derped out is even funnier.

[Exeter]

Originally posted by Coonter Diggs:

Originally posted by LumberJack725:

Dont agree with the write up on bows. My entire first playthrough was with bows and crossbows. Ricochet is useful imo when dealing with enemies that are faster or just as fast as you as you can bounce them off of walls. I also found that most enemy groups would only follow me in groups of two or three, meaning im not getting the best effect out of pierce since it costs that very specific 1 more mana that ricochet. Elemental shot helped me a lot in early game when i had few affixes. Multishot absolutely melted bosses. The only one i didnt really like was explosive shot. it didnt have nearly enough aoe to be useful.

If you carefully prefire into doorway then yes, most of the time you will only have to deal with couple enemies at the time. But at that point you don't need any skills, especially if you can manage to keep ice as dominant element. (In fact, game is perfectly beatable on IM+despair w/o using any arts or magic if you go with agility focused weaponry, but that's another story). Otherwise, there are plenty of times when you get jumped by big packs.

Elemental shot is just a gamble, you spend mana for potentially nothing. As an example in the game Ed-0 ninja has very similar ability, but holding the skill cycles elemets and press uses it. If you could manualy set it to ice/poison this way while also overriding you damage bonuses then it would have been great.

And if you go with dex+agi that means you can use spears, your best friend against ghostly foes and more cost-efficient face melter against single fat opponent. I will retract my statement on the affix however, since after messing with a goblin a bit more it seems that bows can't have innate multishot. So it definitely have a place, If attack rating allows it, going from softening target with multishot into final blow might be better overall than just spamming final blow. +20 attack rating is really nice when you're going for shorter run though.
It really seems like a lot of people think in a way of only using one weapon when you have two separate weapon sets and most enemies have distinct counters.
A lot of things i've mentioned in the first post are "bad" not because they are "unusable", but rather because they coexist alongside much better alternatives that your character has access to regardless of stat distribution.
Yes, you could see mamoth fly approach and try to angle a richochet for style points ... or just whip out your pointy stick and stab it once. And with melee weapons having higher attack rating and damage one poke is all that it would take.

Originally posted by Exeter:

The point you're are missing with spells is speed. As pointed out theres oodles of potions later so mana becomes almost a non issue. Chain lightning literally will hit everything in a room and sometimes into the next room. While chain lighting is kinda slow, its good in the more open areas. In the closed in spots the enemies will literally line up and follow you and thunder disk casts really quick. I dropped every pack fine up to end game quickly when they were level 5 and this was on despair. Most of the non bosses mobs only have like 100 hp or so at end game it seemed. Run back out door way they all line up thunder disc, large pack dies in 3 seconds. 3 knights wander into room kill off ranged mobs repeat. That was basically my mage experience it was easy and perfectly fine. A wand build would be viable but you have to choose between int and mana recovery and extra damage/accuracy. You won't get both with a build like that.

Goremaker 35 hp and Shield demon is 65 hp
chain lightning is
16/14 damage with 6 bounces @ lvl 3
18/17 8 bounces @ 4
20/20 10 bounces @ 5 (lol can you even afford 72 int on despair)
with improved cast rate effect it has same speed as piercing shot from "normal" attack speed weapon with no agility bonus . It's main draw is that it outright ignores truth seeker's shield.

Just to make things clear, my first though was that magic would be definitive option for fast clear, seeing how it deals fixed damage and ignores accuracy/evasion.
But half of the attempts came to a screeching halt at around Blood Coven's landing. You REALLY need to raid skeleton pit for tomes.
You would need an absolute devil's luck to get phantomise, haste & p.orb or oath w/o sidetracking.

And of course while it does not take much, you still taking *some* time fiddling with inventory and picking extra pots off the floor that you would otherwise ignore

So what speed are we talking about here ?

Despite looking different, ice wave, lightning disk, poison orb & pircing shot do hit more or less same area so main difference is animation speed/cost/damage
lightning disk is fast but expensive and weak, ice wave is weaker seemingly to adjust for slow, poison orb is really strong, but it's a dot so attack speed does not matter.
Speed of Bow/crossbow attacks is affected by agility, so str/dex/vit setup will only be able to do 2 shots for mage's 5, but agility-based charcter will attack just as fast without even needing special item effect.

And on "slow" runs you absolutely can afford attack bonuses for your wand and staff, since mana pool and mana refund are the only effects that would even help you as a caster. Not quite sure what do you mean by "recovery" since mana leech doesn't work on spells, on-kill recovery ? I don't think i ever saw more than +1 mana on kill even on highest tier of items.

Just to hammer point home, i am not attacking anyone for having fun with things that seem fun, regardless of how sub-optimal they are. Only pointing out that certain options might need adjustment. It is entirely up to a developer to decide whenever it is magic that needs a buff or non magic options ar too strong.
Yes, seeing three piglets stunlock final boss is funny. Seeing them all getting killed by a single seeker or bone golem because they collectively derped out is even funnier.

I ended up with about 80 int with swap gear. The real find was a unique helmet with +1 to all spell levels which is what got my chain lightning to level 5. Had like 90 hp/140 mana or so on despair at the end. Thunder disk at level 5 is like 15 damage per cast or something. I had +6 mana per kill, about 15% mana leech though I think that only worked with wand. I was finding quite a few +3 hp or mana though I skipped the hp ones as it wasn't need with a ranged build. Summons are around 60 hp at level 5 they really don't go down that fast. Just my wand+ icy strikes and summons was enough for most low number encounters. The main reason I'm arguing with you is the game already kinda trivial for ranged, any significant boost in spell damage would amount to steam rolling a game that already gets kinda easy toward the end.

[ColdRaiN]

Summon great snake - i have a ring for +26 HP for summons , they dont die , lvl 5 80+hp . when all 3 gang they melt any enemy . also i have a ring that make any spell cost 10 mana . so the dmg to mana cost ratio no problem.

[Chris Fifty-Two]

Really finding the War Mother enemy way out of balance with most other mobs at the moment. They move super quick, got a decent amount of health and they fast way they attack with plenty of damage make me fear "basic" versions of them more then champion/boss versions of other mobs. Feels like they should have at least a bit of a downside.