Explorers Gift Wildcard - Unbalanced?

[Celtia]

Recently only gotten the game. Enjoying it so far, but have experienced a couple of bugs that have forced me to reload the game (in particular with the Shops - purchasing certain items and leaving/re-entering the buy and sell menus have caused problems repeatedly) and a couple of crashes, which make me think this game came out of Early Access too early.

Anyway, the Explorer's Gift wildcard, or unofficially the explorer 'class', doesn't use up food by moving over pre-encountered spaces/cards, which seems self-explanatory. The odd thing is that, despite not eating anything, the Explorer still heals as if he did eat food in doing so.

This means you can travel back and forth between any two cards until you have your maximum hitpoints whenever you want in the overworld, trivializing healing concerns. From the wording of "not needing to eat", this seems unintentional to me, but if it is intentional I strongly recommend it be reworked heavily.

TL;DR: Outside of combat, the explorer can heal to max hit points whenever they want at no cost whatsoever.

[vred]

I don't own the DLC but maybe the solution to balance could be a drawback like "the explorer's will to discover is so strong that he can only move foward" or "he can only revisit a card once"

I often heal myself going back and forth when I have enough food but at least its fair because I spend food doing it.

[morgan]

The Wildcards are intended to be unbalanced. Each one is unbalanced in different ways that change up the decisions you make in game - that's pretty much intended behaviour.

[Celtia]

Thanks for the response. I recognize that they're not meant to be even in power level, necessarily, but the Explorer still seems like an odd case. The ability to heal to max (which is the same health max as most classes) without use of food, gold or other requirements make a large number of equipment irrelevant, and it still seems counter-intuitive that it gets health back from eating food...without actually eating food.

Even if this is fully intended behaviour, and there's no interest in mechanically changing it, then I think it should be changed that the explorer automatically heals to full in the overworld, because walking back and forth between two squares/cards, getting 5 health every time, is unnecessarily time-consuming for a player given it has no gameplay impact.

[Daniel Mtanous - USA - INACTIVE]

There are certain cards that if you land on twice make you have the encounter again even if you passed it successfully before.

[Celtia]

They're rare, however. (at least ones with some kind of enforced negative effect).

[Avataristche]

Not only that, explorer can also reenter the shops (looking for specific items and/or easy fights vs dust/mages) indefinitely

[Celtia]

Shops reset what they sell with every entry (and re-set the chances of being ambushed)? Gah! I didn't know that! That's a useful tip... that also further pushes the Explorer;s upside into 'arguably an exploit', since with that knowledge they effectively have infinite options per type of store to purchase, infinite chances to fight (useful with certain equipment/blessings/artifacts to act as infinite gold or ongoing bonuses) and always at max health outside of combat.

It's not the same thing as grinding in a typical game, either, because Hand of Fate is balanced around the idea that you can't grind at will, primarily due to food, health and (in most cases) once-off encounter limitations per floor.

[Daniel Mtanous - USA - INACTIVE]

All that is useless when you die really fast. I find soldier class more OP with the stacking damage/combo helmet. I am on the last boss so my toon is super fast. I can get an 18 combo with 1 or 2 monsters and they all have +3 on their card. I can kill enemies pretty efficiently.

[Celtia]

But relative to the majority of other 'classes', the Explorer is fine in combat.

Can't use Heavy Armour (keep in mind being faster, the alternative, is a survival skill to avoid dying anyway). Health is 100, the 'default', and no other weaknesses.

[BeelzeBob]

I don't disagree that it might be too good, but at the same time I don't see the issue really. It's a single player game after all. Just avoid the Explorer if you think it's too easy.

[Celtia]

Er. I kind of see your point in that this would be of much greater consideration if there was some competetive element here.

But the point still remains that it appears to be a bug to me, either due to its power level or, if the power level was intended, the unnecessary busiwork in utilizing so that instead belies poor game design. Not working as intended, or poor game design, one way or another it seems worthy of comment and hope for a rework of.

[Daniel Mtanous - USA - INACTIVE]

Fixed your statement.

Originally posted by Celtia:

one way or another it seems worthy of comment and hope for no rework of.

[Celtia]

:(

[Cryten]

Either way you approach it, yay or nay, as spoken by the devleoper it is intentional and not a bug.

[Celtia]

True. I've had my fill of the game anyway, so I'm no longer as invested in its faults, strengths or otherwise.

That said, the dev never EXPLICITLY said it was 'intentional', just that the Wildcards weren't meant to be balanced. The text description and effect don't seem to follow, which was primarily what made me think it was a bug.