HoH2 - the NG+ issue

[Ostrogoth]

Ho boys, I felt in love with this tiny bulked ARPG/Rogue lite. Like my first days on Diablo, PoE, Last Epoch and so on. Visualy gorgeous, many cool builds to try out, enviro are cool, there is always something that push you to launch another run, the map's layers are cool, bestiary is cool, the game is cool, you get it. But I'm not gonna lie, there is so many issues. This post isn't about just complaining, but to list and debate around all balancing and design issues, ruining the game at the moment.

Before anything else : this post is about the game at ng+1 minimum. If you are currently enjoying the game in its base difficulty, allright, but it will be normal if you dont recognize yourself in following issues. Like "You are a liar, I'm invicible with my paladin lvl 17 !". Wait until ng+2 and 50 shadow curse stack from nowhere.

1. a LOT of stats

First of all, about the stats. There is ♥♥♥♥ ton of stats, and it's pretty cool ! Lot of theorycrafting possible and builds. But in the other hands, we don't have any information about which stats do what or impact what, how damage bucket is calculated, how penetration work, paired with the fact that some stats/spell are broked, it's complicated to evaluate which stats to prio/is usefull.

2. Melee build are barely unplayable at ng+

Not gonna lie, melee build are almost unplayable in ng+. You need to expose yourself to hit a LOT more than ranged builds, therefore you will stack a lot more shadow curse, and finaly you'll tank nothing really quickly, but still in need to be at melee to do some damages. Not talking about the light caster before the last level who will just shotgun oneshot you if you do ONE mistake.

Add to this the truely lack of sustain of the warrior in his own kit, while paladin have a ok tier heal but with a certain cd. While for example Warlock has a lot better sustain mechanic than warrior or paladin.

You can't facetank at all, you will be shred in no time. With armor debuff of ng+ and the stack of shadow curse you will get, you'll be far less tanky than a ranger or a mage in few minutes.

The only build that work a little bit with paladin, imo, is the divine hammer, full spell power, and you run in circle at max ranged around enemies while divine hammer fall from the sky while you dodge everything.

3. Minion builds doesn't scale with ng+

Summoner builds become quickly unplayable in ng+, while minions have too little hp pool and tankiness to face enemies. Trying some runs with a warlock with minions spe, my little minions are being one shot from floor 3 to the end of the run.

Add to this that I need to expose myself to hit in melee to stack essence to summon minions and therefore lost my essence stack of hp, while my minions are being OS and offer me no sustain or whatever. Minion build warlock is useless.

Ranger has a little minion build, wolf are ok tier, but damage+attack speed is low, and he is 3 or 4 hit to death at high floor.

4. Floor with lighting caster is unbalanced as hell

This floor is not fun at all nor challenging, it's just stupidly unbalanced. One mistake : one shot by a light shotgun from a caster or a light totem. Every other floor have its own mechanic and danger, like the big priest that summon shadows when you kill other ennemies in the temple/crypt. But the floor with those lighting mages ruin the entire run almost everytime. It's not about a difficulty pick, because the last floor is far more easier (but not without issues) than this one, its juste stupidly unbalance. Why in hell even in just normal difficulty, with 700 armor and 250 lighting resist, I'm almost one shot by a lighting cast ?

5. Last floor, too much colors, help

The last floor enviro is pretty cool, but ennemies in it have real issues. The major one isn't about their design, its ok and challenging the fact that they are all spliting, but please change the VFX or sprite's monster visual, because atm we can't see the difference between mobs themself and their huge numbers of projectiles. Especially the purple one. They have almost the same visual between them and their purple bubble projectiles. Its a visual chaos the entire floor.

6. Auto attack/Physical scaling is bad, spell power is key

I can't understand how weapon power, physical damage, spell power, weapon damage on weapon works. But what I've understand is : Spell power/Spell damage > ALL.

In this game, in fact, everything but your auto attack is considered a spell. Pick spell power/%spell damage on all your items, pick 3 spell powers/spell crit/elemental damage drinks, and destroy everything. All spell power stats will scale every spells/passives you have.

'till now I've tried many builds, picking precise stats on item, attack speed, physical damage, crit, pure stats like strength, int, ... But in fact, when I just build tons of spell power/damage, I do a lot more damage. It's a nonsense, like why on my warrior I need to build like a pure mage to do a ♥♥♥♥ tons of damage with my axe throw, totems, leap etc ?

I don't know how the bucket calcul is, but what I've understand is that spell power/damage offer the best scaling by far. Correct me if I'm wrong.

7. Shadow face boss, cool at first time, boring all other times

Shadow face is pretty cool visualy, I love this old 3D art in a 2D enviro. The design is cool to encouter the first time, but it's really anoying and slow for nothing all other times. A boss where you accumulated power and scaling doesn't change the speed of the fight is a bad boss mechanic imo. And even more, this boss will stack you a tons of shadow curse for nothing. It's really anoying for nothing.

8. Enchant is a cool feature, just give it to us (same with blueprints trinket and drinks)

I love enchant feature in rpg/arpg/mmo, and in Hoh2 it's pretty cool and let us optimize our stuff and build. But gosh the ♥♥♥♥ tons of farm and runs needed to hope finding all enchant needed to our builds is just the worst RNG use I've ever seen. Give us all enchant, or at least dunno, let us buy every enchant at an NPC with our golds or trinkets ressources.

Same with blueprints trinkets and drinks. Its cool to find one here and there in some runs, but let us buy those at some NPC with our golds or ressources. The RNG is insane here.

9. Traps issue with tickrate of damage

Dunno if it's just myself, but I guess that there is a real issue on many traps. You take a lot of damage, even more while you are dodging, even more if you are at the cross of multiple traps like spikes one. No invulnerability frame, no dodging frame with the dash, and if you dash you seems to take multiple tick at once. It's complicated to figure out what's going weird with traps, but there is some issues for sure.

[Akarnor]

I pretty much have to agree with all of this, me and my buddy had a blast in regular new game, but for as much as we enjoyed it, we can't see ourselves continuing playing the game like this.

[Altyrian]

Originally posted by Martial Autist:

Originally posted by Altyrian:

It sounds like you're going to get bored very quickly regardless clearing Forest 1 every single time. There are engagements that are outright pointless, clearing the 6 wasps in some corner away from an exit in Forest 1 doesn't really do much to help you get better gear and push for a higher NG. You may have fun doing that, but I have fun going through the early levels as fast as possible to get to the ones where I actually have to think about how I'm going to clear to advance. Both of our play styles get us to the same point, yours is just vastly more time consuming in my opinion.

I think he means what you said to OP in regards to melee tank in NG+, not chasing every wasp. x'D

Even so, that's just the optimal way to play tank. You tank things. If you want to kill everything, you play a class designed to kill everything. If players were intended to both tank every hit coming their way and be able to kill what they want with ease, there wouldn't be much point in having different classes. The way to deal with avoiding curse build up in higher NGs is to simply not get hit. For some classes that means strafing and avoiding the projectiles/attacks that build up curse. For others, it just means not engaging in fights. Paladin is rather limited in range, and because of that, the best way to avoid curse build up is to simply not engage, whereas the classes that aren't limited in range can engage all they want, provided they are capable of dodging the attacks. Also, while he may not have meant chasing every wasp, you get to the point of tankiness where eventually enemies pre-Barracks are essentially just wasps.

[owo]

I dunno, my summoning warlock is ng+4 and doing just fine, and so is my ng+5 warrior. I don't see how those are scaling poorly. I also don't understand everyones issues with shadow curse. You have a ton of ways to get resistance to it or to mitigate it in other ways to the point it almost becomes a non issue. If you know which enemies cause it its also a lot easier to try and focus those first to help with reducing the amount of shadow curse you get as well. All the people complaining about it seem like they haven't even really tried to deal with it.
I think the enchanting stuff isn't that bad either. I just don't really have a problem with it since you get that stuff thrown at you a lot. It's not really hard to find and even if you don't have your build minmaxed it's still pretty doable so there's no need to have the perfect stat on every item.

[Fuzzy the imperfect]

Originally posted by Varyn GER:

On top a more general feedback:
- No skill queuing thus no reliability on skill use is a no-go in a effect loaded game. I have to release left mouse, press the skill button, wait for an unclear time and hope something happens, and then I can use leftclick again. Why not have skills interrupt/cancel basic attacks or at least be queued for after the next basic attack? Would make the gameplay so much smoother.
- No zoom or move options for the overlay map. Whenever I want to see if I missed a spot on the map I have to use the character-sheet map, which always forgets my zoom settings.

I usually hold down left mouse and hold down other keys till the skill fires off. Seems to work.

There is a customizable mini map in the options.

[BadMedium]

Agree with some points. Some stats are not explained. What does parry do? What does cast speed actually do?

Also:
"because atm we can't see the difference between mobs themself and their huge numbers of projectiles."
-regarding the elemental orb mobs on the last floor.
100% THIS

[DeadBeMyDignity]

Warlock summoner enjoyed here. Just soloed my ng+3 whit him. I cannot agree

[Ajax Thy Knight]

I just don't get in any universe that a dev makes ng+ enemies have so much health and thinks it genuinely fun for the player. I dont get the power fantasy of having to hit an enemy for x4 the amount of time while being as squishy as a bug, it encourages skipping fights and bum rushing key items and running to the boss in later ng+.

[Hansdaddyslim]

I personally just think they should put +weapon power on strength attribute so it isn’t just +armour, and have spell power on a different new stat that also gives elemental resistances. That way people aren’t just dumping all their stat points into whatever attribute gives them spell power for their class, and weapon builds will be more viable because your weapon dps will be able to match your spell dps a bit better.

[Boux]

just don't get hit bozo

[Traltwin]

Originally posted by Varyn GER:

On top a more general feedback:
10. Quality of Life
- Having to lift my hand and press esc on pretty much everything is annoying, let us use C/rightclick/whatever to dismiss a window.
- Compare items have to be enabled on every single item you want to compare with your current gear. Please change it to a toggle.
- No sorting options in the stash and inventory is tedious.
- No skill queuing thus no reliability on skill use is a no-go in a effect loaded game. I have to release left mouse, press the skill button, wait for an unclear time and hope something happens, and then I can use leftclick again. Why not have skills interrupt/cancel basic attacks or at least be queued for after the next basic attack? Would make the gameplay so much smoother.
- No zoom or move options for the overlay map. Whenever I want to see if I missed a spot on the map I have to use the character-sheet map, which always forgets my zoom settings.

Oh, and regarding RNG: It would be nice to see trinket and gear drops a bit more evened out. On my last run, I found almost only gear and no trinkets. As only trinkets help with the current run, it feels quite unfair.

What actually gives one the shadow curse on NG+? The game explains nothing and making a connection between a tiny number in the bottom of the screen rising and something specific happening in all that effect mess is kinda hard...

Weird... I hold left click and spam the button I want 2-3 times and it goes off... I machine-gun on my Ranger with this doing Hold Left Click>Tap Right Click... I'd hope this wouldn't break that combo.

[Why can't Light win ASL]

I'm starting to feel like whenever people write these posts on balance I don't value the opinion at all unless they include what ng+ they are at and its like ng+3 or something, so many opinions are from people who seem to have struggled but just havent actually explored the options available. Physical Weapon Melee can easily get to atleast ng+5 (which I know because that is where I am doing exactly that). The stats are generally clear on what they do although the details of their mechanics are not, getting things like Weapon Damage, Physical Damage, Weapon Speed, Crit, and Crit Damage are the easy to identify ways to scale phys weapon damage and it works really well.

So many people complain about shadow curse, just choose the food, the two drinks and the blessing that all reduce the shadow curse buildup and then return and give an opinion, if you use the tools given to you to reduce the shadow curse buildup the shadow curse buildup should not be an issue, if it is somehow still an issue there are other things you can do but just try them.

The warrior doesnt just have recovery but it is probably the best recovery in the game and afaik the best sustainability, the warcry perk for % healing coupled with the CDR from berserk and the multiple sources of damage reduction and increased health makes the warrior insanely tanky as well as giving incredible damage.

Armor and resistance arent enough to survive, max hp is obviously super important and so is recovery but there are also a lot of other source of mitigation, evasion, parry, damage reduction, and block. If you have 700 armor and 200 lightning resistance and you get into the courts you know that the dangerous stuff will be lightning, the 700 armor will help but your survivability will be largely determined by that 200 lightning resistance, getting other sources of mitigation or just enchanting lightning resistance beforehand since you know that is what is dangerous will help you. If you know that you will heal for 100% of your health every second through some recovery can get away with significantly less durability otherwise, your recovery is your defense, if you are dying your recovery might be the issue and if you are playing a class that doesnt have a good or dependable source of recovery you have to mitigate more in other ways.

One thing I will agree on is the Shadow Face is bad after a few times but I don't mind that its different and punishing in a different way, where the goal isnt so much not dying since that just should happen but instead to minimize the shadow curse buildup from the boss.

[Zetherin]

Question, which is tangentially related to this post, but I can't find the information anywhere:

What *additional benefits* do you get for doing NG+?

The wiki page on this is blank. The only thing I can see is the level of gear goes up? If we initiate a NG+ 1, 2, 3, etc. game, do we get more wood, stone, iron, per run? If so, what is the increase % wise? Do higher NG's give better blueprint drops/other uniques? I'm trying to find out how the rewards scale per NG increase.

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by Zetherin:

Question, which is tangentially related to this post, but I can't find the information anywhere:

What *additional benefits* do you get for doing NG+?

The wiki page on this is blank. The only thing I can see is the level of gear goes up? If we initiate a NG+ 1, 2, 3, etc. game, do we get more wood, stone, iron, per run? If so, what is the increase % wise? Do higher NG's give better blueprint drops/other uniques? I'm trying to find out how the rewards scale per NG increase.

Pretty much: yes

you get access to new trinkets, blueprints, higher ilvl gear and the experience points rewards are better too.

Summa summarum you get more of the same plus some more in form of new challenges and new possibilities.

[sangdel]

Originally posted by Zetherin:

Question, which is tangentially related to this post, but I can't find the information anywhere:

What *additional benefits* do you get for doing NG+?

The wiki page on this is blank. The only thing I can see is the level of gear goes up? If we initiate a NG+ 1, 2, 3, etc. game, do we get more wood, stone, iron, per run? If so, what is the increase % wise? Do higher NG's give better blueprint drops/other uniques? I'm trying to find out how the rewards scale per NG increase.

Level cap goes up (more points for attributes/skills/weapons/trinkets) number on gear gets bigger.

The resource drops seem to be by zone not level so farming ng 0 is the fastest if you need to upgrade your town. Extra resources are not actually as valuable as you think because you will max your town upgrades pretty fast, and there aren't that many architect modifiers that matter much.

[Zetherin]

Thank you both.