LIST: Overpowered + Underpowered Items -- Help the Devs Balance the Game

[h2od]

I don't have the time to continusouly edit the main post, but I will post Overpowered/Underpowered Items here as the game progresses.

Whip Weapons -- High damage and long range, but slow attack speed. Gets outclassed by almost every greatsword, which have higher damage, identical or similar range, and identical or similar attack speed. Could use a range increase to set it apart from other weapons, and be a medium between guns and melee weapons.

Shard: Welcome Company -- Does insane amounts of damage, lasts a long time, doesn't cost much mana (should cost around 80 or 100 for the amount of power it has, it is way better than the tentacle boss shard which costs 80).

Weapon: Rhava Bural -- 90% of the time it attacks without using any weapon animation and can be spammed, it is a considerably strong sword for how quickly and fast it can be used. I believe it is a rare drop, which negates its OPness, but once you get the item it's hard not to use anything else for a good portion of the game. You can even attack using this weapon when you're sitting down in a chair. I am fairly certain this item is bugged, because it does have an attack animation but it almost never triggers.

Weapon Shovel -- Useless due to its very slow attack speed and mediocre damage, but it is a rarer drop from only one specific monster.

Rose Ring -- Taking up an entire accessory slot and conferring no stat benefits, it does not provide enough of a MP gain increase from roses to warrant most players wearing it during a playthrough.

Readbeast's Edge -- Starts off as a dagger in the early game, but does not benefit from dagger or rapier special techniques, leaving it a poor choice compared to most weapons.

*EDIT*

A lot of people are focused on the Rhava Bural. I actually ditched the weapon because weapons became nearly useless to just spamming directional skills and running around with paintings (Welcome Party) on. I played 50% of the game, and beat the last boss, with just two spells: Welcome Party + Tis Rozain

Tis Rozain is a holy beam you get in the sand area. You can easily craft multiple of the shard at the alchemist to make it hit harder, and upgrading it is easy also. By end game, it was doing 170 damage per tick and critting for 270--you can spam it FOR THREE MANA (3 MANA). This is not a typo.

I never ran out of mana. Nothing seems to have significant light resistance. Combine this with the fact that most bosses don't really bother you if you stand on the cieling using Inverse, and the game is a cake walk on normal.

But more importantly, tons of people have said they have found other insanely OP skills that completely defeat all of the bosses without much effort (heretical grinder, throw dagger, etc.)

To the critics saying we should just play hard or nightmare mode, useless/UP items are even more useless in higher difficulties, and a higher difficulty would just further necessitate using broken/OP combinations. It isn't fun to play a game where 90% of the skills and items aren't efficient enough to play with.

*EDIT 2*

Please stop comparing this game to SOTN in terms of balancing. Just because SOTN had some busted weapons doesn't mean it was a good thing. Games have come a long way in the past 20 years. Most of us that have been playing games since childhood now have higher standards for challenges and balancing.

*EDIT 3*

Not really convinced by the arguments that this game is perfectly fine and playing as intended. It's a cake walk. After the first zengetsu fight, you never have to dodge anything or optimize for a boss battle for the rest of the game. Even on nightmare, which I've tried, things die too easily.

I played the game 3 times over on Normal, Hard, and Nightmare for one of my saves; and then a fresh game on Nightmare with no gear. The only challenging fights on my first save were Normal mode Zengetsu, and Nightmare mode Gremory. In no other fights did I have to change my style or optimize what I was doing. This isn't Dynasty Warriors, it's an RPG. Saying that the game is meant to be easy because Castlevania was easy and had busted items is moronic. Nobody wants to run around 1 shotting things. If pressing Y to summon bats kills everything in the game with ease, it is meaningless to explore other weapons/techniques/items in your inventory.

Even something simple like increasing the resistances on all of the bosses so that players have to actually think about whether they should use slash/thrust or fire/ice would make the game much more interactive.

Waited 2 years for this, beautiful game, love the items, disappointed in the balancing.

[Tourette's Guy]

The spiral sword is kind of OP, in my opinion, although not gamebreaking.

[CrazyLamer]

Castlevania Symphony of the Night, grind 2x Crissaegrim which is like the Rheva Bural or the upgraded Rhava Velar, then dualwield them in each hand and destroy dracual in 3 seconds without overlevling ^_^ and ofc the skull rings from the catacombs on top of that.

Now that's power. Decent challenge up to when you get Crissaegrim after that you just need to button mash or use a turbo button and literally run through everything

[LittleSisterLover]

The only time I'm not using the Rhava Bural is when I need something that hits hard, as it does have really low damage, but for the most part it's what I always have equipped. The primary reason for that being that you can actually walk while attacking, not being stuck in place for the duration of a weapon attack animation is a godsend, I wish every weapon had that functionality. Were it not for that though, even as fast as the Rhava Bural attacks, I'd likely be using just about any other weapon as good god it takes a lot of hits to kill bloody anything. The convenience of not suffering a spinal injury every time I get in a fight just can't be beat

Welcome Company seemed great to me when I first got it, had it equipped for hours afterwards and...never really used it. I found that the damage isn't honestly all that, it really seemed to more get in the way of my positioning and melee attacking than being any sort of boon, though I'd occasionally trigger it because it was funny to watch enemies walk into it. That it disappears as soon as you leave the room balances it out pretty well IMO. Now True Arrow, THAT'S where it's at, get that thing leveled up a bit and you'll be doing large chunks of damage across the screen for a measly 30 MP. This shard has easily been the ace up my sleeve for pretty much the entire game. True Arrow actually kills while Rhava Bural keeps enemies off of me, the two together are such a reliable pair.

But yea basically I just want to be able to move while using my weapons. Especially looking at greatswords, those charge attacks just lock you in place too long to ever be useful.

[Khronikos]

Originally posted by Billy Blaze:

Originally posted by Casdir:

Pretty much all of them, but I am specifically talking about the portable ones. There was no such thing as balance in those games. There was always some builds that proved to be stronger and better than others.

Not only that.
The portable titles encourage to grind for items/souls.
And in the meantime, you level up so much that you are simply overleveled for each and everything.
If you try to make every weapon in "Dawn Of Sorrow", you will not hear the complete final boss theme, since the fight is over before it began, cause you are 20 level higher than you need to be.

Agreed with this. Those games were hideously balance to the point of incompetence. They really need to do something about that kind of thing.

[Vicious]

What makes Bunny op? Is it the Chun Li kicks?

[GameGeeks]

Originally posted by Vicious:

What makes Bunny op? Is it the Chun Li kicks?

That and the fact it's blunt damage which helps against armor.

[Doresh]

Originally posted by Casdir:

Originally posted by Persephone:

So what old Castlevanias have you played?

Pretty much all of them, but I am specifically talking about the portable ones. There was no such thing as balance in those games. There was always some builds that proved to be stronger and better than others.

SOTN was also pretty rough around the edges. There's a boss (Karasuman) you can start wailing on before he even finishes his rather lengthy intro animation.

[Demonchaser27]

If you want to be honest, how about a buff to the attack speed/damage shards? I've not ever seen them have any kind of noticeable affect. And why is it even possible to level up Blood Steal? It takes a considerable amount of mana yet barely does any healing unless there is a tone of blood on the floor. Upgrading doesn't do what it says. It still seems to heal for 8HP per heal. I've not even noticed anything like additional heals from one blood puddle or anything.

As for nerfs? Nah, don't want any of that because getting OP is what these games are all about. Every single Metroidvania under Iga was always like this. This is just the kind of game it is. I agree on balance, but turning this into a souls game where everything is pitifully weak and the player dies in seconds, no thanks.

[Vicious]

Originally posted by Kazzfire:

should let you know Rhava Bural is just a show of part of a weapon. it does have an attack animation but you have to stand still and if you watch it it doesn't have a blade.

the real version of the sword is a late game weapon called Rhava Velar that puts crissagem to shame and attacks 3 times with one swing and you can spawn it while running. Even better you can spam it while using Accelerator.
That plus welcome company (which does fall off late game) you can clear early game stuff pretty fast almost like speed running it but bosses in hard and a lot of other monsters and stand up to you without much trouble not caring about your blades unless you get a heavy hitter.

Don't even get me started on the crazy combo of Adrasteia a diamond Bullet and the recycle Hat you have infinite ammo and homing bullets

The katanas are really the most powerful once you get the techs down

Think you are missing the point. The only thing that was op, was before launch Alchemic Bounty was easy to get to rank 9 and anything you made gave you an amount equal to your grade of what you crafted which was the only thing iga found as op cause it gave you infinite money and materials. he nerfed it by increasing the cost to dismantle so i think he knows what he is doing

Wanna share where you get all these?

[Burning Thyme | inFo]

i'd say the highest damage shard in the game is Head Flail i use it over even the rhava bural it gives you so much damage if you land cancel it i think a sensible nerf would be just to give you full end lag even on landing

edit: i think the funniest thing is that it's been this way since the beta lmao

[MissingNo15670]

Originally posted by Compa Desu:

the shard "hold RB to boost your stats" is utterly useless, i don't know why it exists

It's only use I can tell is for after you get the item from the chest that appears in the alchemist's shop for 100%ing the shards(it's the same type of item as the chaos ring from aria and dawn except just broken as all hell).

[Paul]

The only thing i'd balance so far is true arrow. I've basicely not had any interest or need to even try other souls, it's hilariously overpowered. I basicely kill everything in one hit, most bosses don't even get to actualy fight me.

[DairunCates]

Originally posted by MSFT Logorouge:

Just a note that I'm pretty sure the OP's goal is not to nerf all the fun items/powers but to avoid having 30% of it being useless garbage or lategame being limited to only a handful of valid options. Nothing wrong with that, regardless of if the game is singleplayer.

Literally every weapon except MAYBE your bare feet does enough damage to kill every boss if you build around it. The passive stats you can get from food and library books alone is enough to power through the game on Normal. There are no "invalid" options for late game. Everything is pretty valid. Some things just don't shred bosses in 4 seconds.

This isn't a fighting game. You don't need to be 100% optimized all the time. You can, indeed, just do whatever you think is fun. If you like things hard, don't consume food and don't use OP weapons. If you like to explode entire rooms of enemies with a button press, then do that. It is not the game devs fault if you have so little willpower that you can't self-impose a ban on an overpowered build. Those things exist for the people that like using them just as the silly joke weapons exist for people that want to beat the game with squeaky shoes.

[Delnoir]

Whips are a lot more dangerous than they seem. They hit all around you and when jump cancelled can attack surprisingly fast. They're blunt as well and not a bad thing to have around enemies that resist slashing.

Mastering Critical Swing makes them utterly stupid. An on command critical hit for 30 mana you can preform in rapid succession can be awfully potent AND it packs some of the longest potential range in the game. Andromeda is also one of the best holy type weapons to have around. I beat the game with it.

[Raster]

Originally posted by Vicious:

Originally posted by Kazzfire:

should let you know Rhava Bural is just a show of part of a weapon. it does have an attack animation but you have to stand still and if you watch it it doesn't have a blade.

the real version of the sword is a late game weapon called Rhava Velar that puts crissagem to shame and attacks 3 times with one swing and you can spawn it while running. Even better you can spam it while using Accelerator.
That plus welcome company (which does fall off late game) you can clear early game stuff pretty fast almost like speed running it but bosses in hard and a lot of other monsters and stand up to you without much trouble not caring about your blades unless you get a heavy hitter.

Don't even get me started on the crazy combo of Adrasteia a diamond Bullet and the recycle Hat you have infinite ammo and homing bullets

The katanas are really the most powerful once you get the techs down

Think you are missing the point. The only thing that was op, was before launch Alchemic Bounty was easy to get to rank 9 and anything you made gave you an amount equal to your grade of what you crafted which was the only thing iga found as op cause it gave you infinite money and materials. he nerfed it by increasing the cost to dismantle so i think he knows what he is doing

Where do I get the Rhava Velar?