Feedback and suggestions

[Frostz]

Fun game, most of my frustration comes from RNG screwing me over. Some feedback and suggestions:

1. After unlocking everything, the trigger and boon pool become quite diluted. I would suggest adding something that other roguelikes do, like banning certain items from appearing in the run. Or something similar to what Synthetik does, where you can increase or decrease the chances of certain items appearing.
   
2. Depending on what you're planning to build, some tribulations are awful to keep restarting over and over until you get a decent set. For example, Invictum is awful for attackables, and Diminution, for instance, is an instant restart no matter what I'm building. The above solution would probably work here as well.
   
3. More vibes, or maybe an ascension system for the Ballionaire++ vibe, such as Ballionaire+1, Ballionaire+2, etc.
   
4. An endless mode that gets exponentially harder (e.g. Balatro) with each tribute would be fun to keep playing until your build breaks.

Other than that, just more content and keep up the good work.

[Zelxios]

i agree with what you;re saying my main issue is that its too easy and would like an ascension level and some challenge runs like playing only a certain number of items from a specific pool set and/or starting with debt

after beating ballilionare++ im kinda disinterested in it for the time being until whatever new content they're putting out and i havent even unlocked all the times yet

very good game but too short

[73Datsun240Z]

In response to OP points:

1. Personally, I don’t see a need a need for a ban system. I feel like good management of re-rolls, removals, and skips makes up for the “bloat” I see people bringing up. I would consider myself a roguelike veteran, and part of what I like about the genre is working around the randomness and having a large pool makes for more randomness but also so much more diversity which keeps the game fresh. If anything I would almost like the item and boon pool to eventually double in size. But at the same time I do advocate for more accessibility in games, so If the Devs decide that a ban system does fit with their vision of the game I wouldn’t be bothered by it… but I would prefer it be an option and not mandatory.

2. I will agree that tribulations are not in a great balance state. There are some that are a minor nuisance only hamper 1-2 strategies while some are basically pure RNG (especially dependent on the board) while some are just so detrimental that I have yet to finish a run that includes them. Basically makes the start of a run into a game of restart scum until you get the best case scenario. This needs a total rework in my opinion. I think the tribulations should effect fundamental play style or strategic approach by the player which makes them focus on changing from static strategies instead of being three roadblocks that artificially increase the difficulty of the game, or force the use/disuse of specific items. Ultimately it’s not that any one tribulation is game ending, but it’s the combination of 2-3 that can basically make a large chunk of the item pool nearly useless or detrimental.

3+4. Agree would like to see more maps and modes. The Devs are clearly very creative and have a good grasp on balance for a game like this and I’m sure will come up with some fun new additions to keep the game fresh.

[Woody]

Originally posted by 73Datsun240Z:

In response to OP points:

1. Personally, I don’t see a need a need for a ban system. I feel like good management of re-rolls, removals, and skips makes up for the “bloat” I see people bringing up. I would consider myself a roguelike veteran, and part of what I like about the genre is working around the randomness and having a large pool makes for more randomness but also so much more diversity which keeps the game fresh. If anything I would almost like the item and boon pool to eventually double in size. But at the same time I do advocate for more accessibility in games, so If the Devs decide that a ban system does fit with their vision of the game I wouldn’t be bothered by it… but I would prefer it be an option and not mandatory.

There is so much pointless bloat in this game. More choices doesn't necessarily make something better. I understand your point, but I also disagree with it.

Hypothetically you've built your entire board around water balls, yet for the past 10+ rounds you've gotten nothing but bricks, piggy banks, investment banks, radiators, etc. Is your round more fun and/or better because of the choices? You can't really do much to tilt the RNG in your favor, like you can in countless other rogue-lites.

Ultimately, I agree with the OP. There is something wrong with the diluted pool, and there are many ways to fix it. The devs could even add a choice in the menu to disable it for people that don't want bans/more rerolls/whatever fix they decide on.

[Tzenesh]

The way I view the bans is...they have allowed an automatic unlock system in the game already. They have chosen to keep the game "casual" in the sense that it's not difficult like a Souls game. Because of this, I don't see a reason to not include a ban system. This game is only as difficult as you choose to make it. Even on ++, you can force through an optimal strategy with a fairly consistent win rate. The reason I bring this up is because I rather enjoy the frustration of a Greenhouse not appearing. It forces me to make non-optimal decisions.

All of the above being said, I do think that as you increase the difficulty, removing bans, limiting rerolls, etc...is a great way of making the game difficult.

[73Datsun240Z]

Originally posted by Woody:

There is so much pointless bloat in this game. More choices doesn't necessarily make something better. I understand your point, but I also disagree with it.

Hypothetically you've built your entire board around water balls, yet for the past 10+ rounds you've gotten nothing but bricks, piggy banks, investment banks, radiators, etc. Is your round more fun and/or better because of the choices? You can't really do much to tilt the RNG in your favor, like you can in countless other rogue-lites.

Ultimately, I agree with the OP. There is something wrong with the diluted pool, and there are many ways to fix it. The devs could even add a choice in the menu to disable it for people that don't want bans/more rerolls/whatever fix they decide on.

Like I said I don’t necessarily disagree with the OP, or what you’re saying for that matter. I like the game as is and believe the Devs have a good vision with the game and want them to fulfill their vision. If it involves a ban system then that’s great! It would make the game more accessible to players new to the genre. But it should be an optional difficulty setting because myself (and I feel like a number of other roguelike veterans) don’t want to be forced to use bans for the challenge.

In the scenario you mentioned even if you were specifically setting up with water balls the bricks, piggy bonks, and investment bonks are still very strong viable earners (in fact those three items early on have won runs almost exclusively). Yeah you won’t be able to make use of some of the fire ball items easily, but having water balls on the board doesn’t extinguish fire balls so you could run those too with campfires. Even with some of the less detrimental tribulations (like the ager one or teleporter one) don’t make agers and teleporters useless.

I guess I would be interested in hearing the thoughts on how the pro-“ban system”-players would like to see it implemented. Do you want to pick [insert number] of items to ban at the start of a run? Do you want to a number of bans to drop mid-game similar to the reroll and remove buttons? Do you want preset banlists by the Dev based on the vibe you pick? Or do you want less of a ban system and more of a weighted item system where you are more likely to see items associated with items already on the board or the vibe you picked?

[Frostz]

Originally posted by 73Datsun240Z:

But it should be an optional difficulty setting because myself (and I feel like a number of other roguelike veterans) don’t want to be forced to use bans for the challenge.

I can't think of a single game that forces you to use a mechanic like this. These suggestions are meant to be completely optional. If you don’t want to banish items, you don’t have to. If you’re not interested in going up in ascension or trying the endless mode, that’s entirely up to you.

Originally posted by 73Datsun240Z:

I guess I would be interested in hearing the thoughts on how the pro-“ban system”-players would like to see it implemented.

Examples from the top of my head:

• Vampire Survivors, you can buy a "banish" power-up to prevent a certain number of items from appearing again during a run, and another "seal" power-up to completely stop certain items from appearing altogether.
  
• Synthetik, you have supply tokens (4 to increase and 4 to decrease) to manually adjust the chances of specific items appearing more or less frequently in a given run.
  
• Halls of Torment, you can acquire a limited number of Potions of Oblivion that lets you remove unwanted traits from the level-up pool in the current run.

In the case of VS and HoT, you unlock these mechanics through the meta progression of the games. Since Ballionaire doesn’t have meta progression, I think adding another "currency," like rerolls and removals, would be the most straightforward approach.

All of your suggestions for banning are fine by me. Ultimately, it's up to the developers to decide the best way to balance the game. My frustration, in particular, comes from the early game. In the late game, it doesn’t affect much because you can cheese the game to have an infinite number of rerolls.

As for the weighted system you mentioned, it could potentially mess up the balance as that would not be so optional, so I would avoid it.

My point with that suggestion is that the game is still relatively new, and for now, it's fine to keep it as it is. However, as more and more content gets added, it might become frustrating to get a specific trigger you need. In games like Slay the Spire, Monster Train, Inkbound, Soulstone Survivors, etc., the pool of cards or abilities doesn’t get as bloated because they are limited to your clan or hero.

I’m also 100% in favor of challenge vibes with varied obstacles, as others have mentioned, for example, limited resources, set trigger/boon pools, timed rounds, starting in debt, etc.

[73Datsun240Z]

Originally posted by Frostz:

Examples from the top of my head:

• Vampire Survivors, you can buy a "banish" power-up to prevent a certain number of items from appearing again during a run, and another "seal" power-up to completely stop certain items from appearing altogether.
  
• Synthetik, you have supply tokens (4 to increase and 4 to decrease) to manually adjust the chances of specific items appearing more or less frequently in a given run.
  
• Halls of Torment, you can acquire a limited number of Potions of Oblivion that lets you remove unwanted traits from the level-up pool in the current run.

I’ll admit I haven’t gotten around to those roguelikes/lites yet, and I don’t know what their item pools and collection/scaling systems look like, But all those ban systems you mentioned sound very reasonable.

It may be that I have just played mostly games that don’t have ban systems so I think that is my hesitation for feeling like one is necessary. I play a lot of games like Isaac, Brotato, Crab Champs, Risk of Rain 2, Streets of Rogue, Dungeon of the Endless, Diceomancer, Inscryption, Peglin, Genome Guardian, and I would even consider For The King I+II in this category… all of which don’t have bans. While the one I remember playing with a ban system, Neon Abyss, was so mid that I dropped the game (not because of the ban system, the game was not great with or without it).

One of the reasons I can think of why those games I mentioned don’t have bans systems is because the development path pushed towards buffing underpowered and underutilized items over time bringing them more inline with the typical items, or reworking items entirely to improve or create synergies with more items. Again not trying to be sound totally anti-ban system here, but would some item buffs, more chances/ways to reroll, and maybe more ways to get specific drafts (like the boon that grants spell drafts instead for water/fire, plant, shy, limited, etc ball triggers) possibly mitigate most of the reason a ban system would feel necessary?

[Helen - Raw Fury]

Hi there, thanks for the feedback. We have added the ability to ban (and unban) items you have unlocked to our latest experimental branch.

Full details of how to join the experimental branch and what is included in the build are available on our Discord: www.discord.gg/ballionaire

[Rama]

I think the game would gain a lot of replayability with some specific challenges or special modes. The biggest problem I see is that some tribulations are just really unfun. There's a fine line between something being challenging and something just taking away from the fun. For example, it's hard to see any scenario where I wouldn't restart immediately if I'm going to get the 0.5 multiplier tribulation, it just wouldn't feel good to play with. As well, if I pick a certain starting build (like the maul) and have a tribulation that punishes attackables, I'm always going to restart immediately. I think there both be more tribulations, as well as some specific tweaks to make sure that the tribulations are still really hard, but not anti-fun.

[Rama]

Originally posted by Rama:

I think the game would gain a lot of replayability with some specific challenges or special modes. The biggest problem I see is that some tribulations are just really unfun. There's a fine line between something being challenging and something just taking away from the fun. For example, it's hard to see any scenario where I wouldn't restart immediately if I'm going to get the 0.5 multiplier tribulation, it just wouldn't feel good to play with. As well, if I pick a certain starting build (like the maul) and have a tribulation that punishes attackables, I'm always going to restart immediately. I think there both be more tribulations, as well as some specific tweaks to make sure that the tribulations are still really hard, but not anti-fun.

To be clear, I only point out these things because this game is great and I'm excited to see where it goes.

[73Datsun240Z]

Originally posted by Rama:

I think the game would gain a lot of replayability with some specific challenges or special modes. The biggest problem I see is that some tribulations are just really unfun. There's a fine line between something being challenging and something just taking away from the fun. For example, it's hard to see any scenario where I wouldn't restart immediately if I'm going to get the 0.5 multiplier tribulation, it just wouldn't feel good to play with. As well, if I pick a certain starting build (like the maul) and have a tribulation that punishes attackables, I'm always going to restart immediately. I think there both be more tribulations, as well as some specific tweaks to make sure that the tribulations are still really hard, but not anti-fun.

I agree that a large number of the current tribulations (including how some scale with difficulty) are the biggest flaw with the current gameplay loop. When I was starting out with games like Binding of Isaac I would restart scum a lot trying to get optimized floor one items, but over time I didn’t need to do that more. In this game it feels almost necessary as some are so detrimental like the one you have to deal 500 damage to… even on pyramid with lots of spawners, balloons, butterfly’s I still can’t get past that one.

Most of them are just a nuisance and don’t actually change how you strategize to make it harder, they just make the game harder… like a classic from TES: Oblivion where the difficulty slider didn’t change enemy AI to make the game harder, it just made you weaker and enemies stronger. But even the combo of 2-3 nuisance ones by the end of the game can be frustrating especially depending on the map you play.

[Woody]

Originally posted by 73Datsun240Z:

Originally posted by Rama:

I think the game would gain a lot of replayability with some specific challenges or special modes. The biggest problem I see is that some tribulations are just really unfun. There's a fine line between something being challenging and something just taking away from the fun. For example, it's hard to see any scenario where I wouldn't restart immediately if I'm going to get the 0.5 multiplier tribulation, it just wouldn't feel good to play with. As well, if I pick a certain starting build (like the maul) and have a tribulation that punishes attackables, I'm always going to restart immediately. I think there both be more tribulations, as well as some specific tweaks to make sure that the tribulations are still really hard, but not anti-fun.

I agree that a large number of the current tribulations (including how some scale with difficulty) are the biggest flaw with the current gameplay loop. When I was starting out with games like Binding of Isaac I would restart scum a lot trying to get optimized floor one items, but over time I didn’t need to do that more. In this game it feels almost necessary as some are so detrimental like the one you have to deal 500 damage to… even on pyramid with lots of spawners, balloons, butterfly’s I still can’t get past that one.

Most of them are just a nuisance and don’t actually change how you strategize to make it harder, they just make the game harder… like a classic from TES: Oblivion where the difficulty slider didn’t change enemy AI to make the game harder, it just made you weaker and enemies stronger. But even the combo of 2-3 nuisance ones by the end of the game can be frustrating especially depending on the map you play.

I agree. I'd love to see some of the tribulations changed (or the whole idea of them revamped). The one where you need to place a ton of immutable objects/movers (whatever it's called) is just so unfun for me. I love the play of seeing the ball bounce all over the place and interact with stuff, and that tribulation really takes away a ton of those cool interactions. I can't put bumpers anywhere on the field because of bad RNG .