Balance discussion

[MTaur]

Hey, just thought I'd mention some thoughts to help with balance. Well, just one thought so far...

MP regen outscales HP regen every time, at the moment.

What I mean by that is that with no investment at all in MAG, you can heal for more than 60 health at a cost of 20 mana, and mana regen only gets better from there. So 1 mana regen is worth at least 3 health regen over the long run. IIRC, Fractal Cabbage grants 2 mana regen, and nothing in the game is worth more than 6 health regen at that stage of the game. Just by picking up crystals, you'll be doing more like 70-80 or more per Heal in no time.

IMO, HP regen items of the same tier should heal more than a warrior or alchemist build would typically get from mana regen with no MAG investment, perhaps significantly so. Even if HP regen wins, MP regen would still be useful because it is flexible, but only mages should see HP regen become totally obsolete in the same way that it does now.

To keep the overall difficulty of the game the same, the solution IMO would be to buff HP regen. If Fractal Cabbage gives +2 mana regen, then this is equivalent to 6-8 health regen if Heal is good for 60-80 heath. 80 is only slightly high, so a health regen somewhere around, say, 8-10 should be available at this stage of the game.

Later on, on floors 60-100, you can easily get Heal to be worth 100-150, or maybe even 200 in NG+ or with a mage specialist. So if we call it 160, then that's 8 health per mana. Mortimus Iron is +3 mana regen, so the corresponding health regen should be something like 25. 30 wouldn't even be that ridiculous - that would break even when you can heal for 200, keeping in mind that mana is also more flexible. IIRC, the best you can enchant for is +10 health regen.

TL;DR: HP regen is basically worthless in its current state compared to mana regen. The only reason to use health regen is because you're out of crafting material or the item is already enchanted and you can't spare the mana.

[K Jam]

Or you just don't have the heal spell. I didn't use it all game.

[MTaur]

Heal literally costs three skill points cumulatively to unlock, which is one level-up. There is literally no reason not to pick it up for anyone ever, unless you're just trying to make the game harder for the lulz.

[K Jam]

No I just want specific things earlier, like all the attack tree, and stuff like transmute.

[MTaur]

If you're getting Transmute, then it's just one more skill point to make your mana bar amazingly useful instead of dead space on your UI. For one skill point, you could be sustaining HP at an insanely good rate, like twice as good as you get from HP regen. The original point of the OP stands whether you ignore it or not. Heal is a low-hanging fruit that makes HP regen completely obsolete as soon as you unlock it. I would unlock Heal late in my first run at the very latest, just to turn my mana bar and potions into some health, no matter what build I was using otherwise.

[K Jam]

Nah I used it all the time for transmuting pickaxes and large potions (mana and health).

[MTaur]

It's not that Transmute is bad. It's that Heal is the closest thing to a free skill that there is, and it literally makes HP regen obsolete, period. Any HP regen you got from items could've been mana regen instead, and only that sliver of mana regen needs be rationed for heals, and you can continue to transmute or pilfer just as much as you would otherwise. The only difference is you spend *one* skill point and heal a LOT more, like at least 50% more.

[K Jam]

But I didn't need it.....

[MTaur]

If you didn't need Heal, then you didn't need health regen. Maybe you started on Floor 1 every time and farmed a ton of potions. I don't know. The point remains that MP regen easily makes HP regen obsolete. If you used HP regen, then you almost surely could've gotten better results from more MP regen and heal.

[MTaur]

If you don't need a broadband modem to download an MP3, that doesn't make broadband not superior to dial-up. Same thing here. You can win with a handicap, but that's what you're doing if you use HP regen.

[K Jam]

Yeah I know? I never argued that point. I agree with you.... All I said was there is a reason to not get heal. i just got to 31 or 32 and then bought heal, cus all the other times there were other things I wanted.

And is there anything wrong to playing how I want to play? Or are you trying to make me play your way for some reason, because you think it is better?

[MTaur]

My real point has always been that HP regen is totally outclassed, and if you play around regen altogether with potions, then that doesn't change the fact.

[Scutilla]

Unfortunately yeah, there is definitely a tiering system for the various stats. MP Regen, Attack, and Defense are all you need to beat the game. The size of your HP and MP pools don't matter much when they're constantly regenerating, and fancy things like Bleed and elemental damage are inferior to more raw Attack. Elemental defense is useful against monsters who bypass defense via elemental damage, but you can still just heal though them and regen your MP on the physical monsters.

It's to the point where Heal is better than all the other spells in the game combined.

[K Jam]

Hahaha yeah pretty much.

I tried using decimate though, not too shabby. Bypasses defence, and ticks just before your attack starting from your second. So you only miss one amount of damage from it really. And you can only get 6 attack from forging, whereas decimate can get to 9.

Was thinking of trying fire since that gets to 12 :p. But the only things that survive are dragons, and they uber resist fire anyway...

[MTaur]

Certain zones tend to have certain monster weaknesses. Light especially on 80+. Casting the appropriate attack spell and swapping in an enchanted weapon makes a big difference here, possibly more efficient than Heal in some cases in terms of damage prevented (that would've needed to be healed otherwise). Swapping equipment to exploit weaknesses is worth it, all other things being equal. (Though of course you want MP regen instead of anything else if it's a very weak monster, regardless of weaknesses)

I don't remember off the top of my head how damage enchantments tend to scale. Since all reduction is flat and most of your damage is physical, there would absolutely have to be higher magic damage enchantments than physical for it to be worth enchanting in the case where the monster has 0 of that resist but isn't weak to it either. I think it *is* true that element enchant damage is generally higher than physical enchant damage at all stages of the game, but I'm not sure. Even Decimate should have to be a larger number than physical damage to be worth it.

I think similar considerations can hold for other resists. Rotating the correct ones in and out should help, even if it's a bit micro-managey. It also might not be worth your Enchant MP to bother with in some cases. Resists vs MP regen probably has some kind of break-even point depending on several factors. Definitely resists are better if you have to take a ton of hits, and MP regen wins if you're taking 0-1 hits.

As far as stats that don't totally suck are concerned, it seems like critical strike is decent, and I'm pretty sure it multiplies spell damage too. Dodge and insta-kill tend to help when you're in a really tough area, but aren't as good when you're steamrolling. One lucky insta-kill can save you two potions, if you're in a potion-chugging phase where you're just trying to find a last chest or two or reach the next shop.

You're absolutely right about HP and MP, though. A quest reward can fill your health to 100%... don't use it all in one place. Other than that... it's just a buffer giving you more time in between potion chug sessions in the final boss fight. So... max HP/MP as well as HP regen are almost worthless beyond whatever you get automatically. That's a big design problem IMO.