Balancing Children of Morta

[ElCid]

I really love this game, and you can really see the love the devs also put behind the project. Whether we'll be getting more content or patches after the online co-op drops or not, I think an extra effort could be done to ensure the replay value of this game for many years.

In the past two years since its release there has been a lot of talk on how unbalanced characters are. And for the most part I agree. Melee characters tend to get the shorter end of the stick.

I know that the difficulty and RNG are part of the rogue-like experience, but it wouldn't hurt to make characters more viables on their own rather than being fully dependant on what they get during the run. Because a lack of luck in getting powerful Relics and Graces can really feel frustrating.

Quality of Life Changes

• Add a Quest Marker in the mini-map. Some side-quests involve you running around through the rest of the floor to find a specific item, and then return to the quest giver to get your reward. It would be a small quality-of-life change to include a "!" symbol in the mini-map demarking where the quest giver is so you can find them quicker later.
  
• Allow players to salvage unwanted items into Morv and/or Gemstones. This not only adds a risk VS reward to the game, but also allows players to benefit from getting rid of unwanted Runes/Graces/Relics/Potions. Dead Cells has this, and it is amazing.
  
• Make enemies drop Morv in The Forest, and once this map is unlocked, all the characters suffering from Corruption are cleansed. I heard of a lot of people pretty much soft-locking themselves in The Forest because they didn't have the resources necessary to upgrade the characters, and their most leveled character was under Corruption.

John

I think John is already in a pretty solid state. He is sturdy, deals a decent damage and has the whole shield-cancel thing. But there are some small tweaks he could get, in my opinion.

• Increase the radius of Shield Slam a bit. Great skill, but sometimes it feels like it doesn't hit enemies unless they're pratically hugging John.
  
• Increase the radius of Shield Dash. This skill is a bit wonky and sometimes it fails to hit opponents for some reason.

Linda

One of the most enjoyable characters in the game to use, but her viability really takes a huge drop on New Game+ Hard Mode. There are some various small changes that could be done to greatly improve her gameplay.

• Inner Rhythm persists for 2/3/4 seconds after Linda moves. One of the biggest issues with Linda, specially in solo play, is how dependent she is of Inner Rhythm to deal damage, and when enemies get near her she is forced to move, losing the damage bonus. Simply adding a small duration after she moves would already fix her DPS issues.
  
• Harmonic Slam instead drops a trap that triggers once enemies passes through, stunning them. Harmonic Slam always felt a bit weird to use because it encourages Linda to go melee range to stun her enemies, which feels a bit counterintuitive. In my opinion, turning it into a trap makes her gameplay more fluid, as she can drop it at her feet while moving backwards to bait her enemies into it.
  
• Lentando Charm also causes Explosive Crescendo to slow enemies. I understand the need of this skill as a defensive ability when Linda gets surrounded, but ideally you don't want to get hit. Adding an extra flavor to this skill would give it extra oomph and directly synergize with Lento to the Grave.
  
• Deft Hands also makes Linda's arrows pierce one additional target. I know it would be a lot to add to a single skill since it already increases her attack speed AND decreases her cooldowns, but a piercing talent is greatly need. In higher density maps Linda struggles a lot to kill enemies.

Kevin

Kevin is a bit of a polarizing character. He is really weak in the early game, and a beast in the endgame. However, he only becomes that beast when a lot of the Ben's workshop upgrades have been purchased, notably the increased Dodge rate, which is something Kevin greatly needs. I have some few ideas that could help him in another direction:

• Shadow Cloak also increases Kevin's movement speed by 6%/8%/10%. Shadow Cloak is a great repositioning tool that could get some extra oomph.
  
• Shadow Dance also causes Shadow Cloak to clears Kevin of slows. This is to further increase the value of Shadow Cloak and give Kevin a more defensive use to it.

Lucy

Lucy is great, to the point it is like she has Graces embebbed in her kit. But there is one particular thing she could be improved at, which is:

• Increase the radius and damage of the explosion triggered by Incendiary Shot. Honestly, there have been some instances where enemies where enemies were hugging each other and the explosion didn't do damage.

Mark

Mark is my second favorite character in the game after Lucy. His gameplay is fluid and very rewarding. But there are a couple of bugs that make him very frustrating to play.

• Please fix Kevin's auto-target hitboxes when attacking flying enemies. Facing certain enemies, such as the bats, is incredibly frustrating because hits simply won't connect. There is also a bug with it where he won't be able to auto-target oponents very close to walls.
  
• Fix the radius of Scourging Whip. It is somewhat deceptive and won't pull enemies a bit closer to the edges even though its animation connects with them. Not a major issue, but definitely something that could be looked into.

Joey

Joey has a lot of problems to him. Probably the biggest one is his lack of defensive skills, which greatly hurts his viability in Hard Mode. I know that buffing him too much can make him a bit too strong, but there is one small change that could balance him well, which is:

• The More the Merrier also grants Joey 7/11/15% armor while surrounded by enemies. This would probably solve one of his fatal flaws which is being susceptible to damage.

Apan

I love Apan. She feels good to play with and has a pretty good mechanic with slow and extra damage. But there are some small tweaks that could be done to improve her viability and flexibility:

• Increase Apan's energy generation. It takes forever to charge it to the max to use Magic Glyph.
  
• Make so Apan can move while channeling Magic Glyph, at reduced movement speed, and increase its pushaway force. This would solve Magic Glyph's greatest flaw, which is making Apan completely vulnerable while she is using it.
  
• Increase the healing of Healing Glyph, and also allow it to heal other characters. It always felt weird to me how Apan carries "The Healer" title but is unable to heal allies in co-op, specially since her whole mechanic is being extra viable in co-op play.