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Balance Mod

Elites are closer in overall difficulty to each other, more weapons feel fun and are worth using, and fewer characters and starting weapons should feel frustrating or unfun. More items are worth using, and fewer choices are overpowered or 'always-picks'. Knockback is less frustrating, the Range stat is better, Luck is more valuable, mixed-weapon builds are easier to manage, and several bugs are fixed.

The full, detailed list of all changes can be found here: https://github.com/DarkTwinge/Brotato-BalanceMod/#full-changelog . Below is a shorter summary of the major changes you should know about:

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• Knockback now never pushes enemies towards you.
  
• Range gained from level-ups & items is ~33% larger (both the increases and decreases).
  
• Armor is slightly less effective (~7%).
  
• Easier to have mixed-weapon builds: Shop weapon-set favoring now accounts for all of your weapons (rather than weighing all your sets equally), and the chances of being offered one of the exact weapons you already have is higher the more weapon types you have.
  
• Base item/weapon rarity offered in shops slightly lower; Luck impacts shop rarity more; Tier 2-4 Luck Level-ups better.
  
• Small tweaks to other level-ups, notably dropping tier-1 Harvesting to 4 and boosting several weaker tier-4 level-ups to be more worthwhile.
  
• Horde Waves give ~8% fewer materials.
  
• All explosions can now crit and tooltips now display explosion size.
  
• Several tooltips cleaned up to be more clear, hidden mechanics are detailed, & character descriptions take up less room. Additional Quality of Life features such as icons for relevant Fairy & King items. Various vanilla-game bugfixes.

• Torch, Wand, Crossbow, Plank, Cacti Club, Screwdriver, and Sniper Rifle all receive relevant buffs.
  
• Spear, SMG, Lightning Shiv, Flamethrower, and Stick receive nerfs.
  
• Rock, Pistol, Chopper, Hatchet, Scissors, Medical Gun, Potato Thrower, and Plasma Sledge receive minor buffs; Flaming Brass Knuckles, Fist, Nuclear Launcher, and Chain-gun receive minor nerfs.
  
• Lightning Shiv & Sniper Rifle projectiles now have the same Crit Chance & Crit Damage as the main hit.
  
• Hand partially reworked to make tier-3 and 4 worth buying.
  
• Bugfix: Revolvers no longer instantly reload when used alongside effects that check if you're moving (e.g. Solider).

Tons of items receive small buffs or nerfs: overall more items are worth buying more often and the strongest give less power for their cost. Note that the goal is not to make everything equally strong; there is still plenty of variance and build-specific decision-making. Some highlights:

• Esty's Couch, Robot Arm, and Padding have been reworked.
  
• Spicy Sauce has a bigger explosion and proc chance.
  
• Eyes Surgery also adds +1 burn duration.
  
• Weird Food is now Tier-2 (easier to find if you have high Luck).
  
• Snail now also slows enemy charges.
  
• Power Generator now reduces your HP as it powers up.
  
• Tardigrade is no longer wasted by Bloody Hand/Donation.
  
• Ricochet is now friendlier with already-piercing weapons.
  
• Heavy Bullets now stronger overall but lowers Accuracy.
  
• Fairy gives less HP Regen and gives negative speed for tier-4s instead of negative HP Regen.
  
• Candle is cheaper, and thus more viable for non-Elemental builds that want fewer enemies.
  
• Sifd's Relic much cheaper.
  
• Alien Tongue & Mutation significantly buffed.
  
• Medikit & Bloody Hand nerfed.
  
• Fixed several missing item tags (which make certain characters more likely to find appropriate items).

As with items, the goal is not for characters to be equal strength, as it is more interesting and fun for them to be varied. Instead, we compress the difference from top to bottom a little bit so the easiest options are less 'free' and the hardest are less frustrating/punishing. (For example, Jack is buffed and Masochist is nerfed, but Masochist is still a much easier character.)

• Jack, One-armed, and Farmer receive moderate buffs.
  
• Artificer now deals base damage with Tools (instead of only 1).
  
• Knight, Loud, Masochist, Renegade, Bull, Doctor, Cryptid, Demon, King, Gladiator, and Brawler receive modest nerfs.
  
• Mage can now run an Engineering build (turrets causing burn via Sausage) and also handles Gun builds better (extra Sausage).
  
• Several characters have more sensible tagging (items they are favored to find), e.g. Streamer is now more likely to find structures. Streamer also now gets +2 Armor from Pocket Factory (instead of nothing).
  
• Starting weapons overhauled to make more sense and to be more fun for random-weapon runs, with several nonsense picks removed and many new appropriate options added.

• Smiley/Croc, Hivemind/Colossus, and Mother Elites nerfed.
  
• Gargoyle/Bat, Monk, Chef/Butcher, Mantis, and Rhino Elites buffed.
  
• Loot Goblins are easier to kill in early waves.
  
• Helmet enemies have more HP.
  
• Wave 16 harder. Wave 14/15 Horde waves harder. Wave 12 slightly harder.
  
• Wave 20 has additional small enemies, making it slightly harder and allowing for more synergy from effects that rely on killing enemies or picking up materials.

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Tune into my stream where I play a wide variety of indie games: https://www.twitch.tv/darktwinge

If you'd like to financially support my ability to make and maintain mods like this, you can do so on Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/DarkTwinge or directly: https://paypal.me/DarkTwinge

Fully unlocked Brotato save file (with blank character completion so you can still track your progress): https://www.darktwinge.com/skip-metaprogression-unlocks/brotato-save-file/

You might also enjoy my FTL Balance Mod: https://www.darktwinge.com/ftl-balance/index.php

Bait & Egg Reminder: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3029249900
Elites in Pause Menu: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3032359714
Piggy Bank Reminder: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3005196583
Tooltip Tracking Fix: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3003583829
Advanced Statistics: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3025488976
Revamped Icons: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3003721761

Inschato, ArosRising, Hyphen-ated, Pasha, and everyone else that's assisted with feedback, suggestions, or coding help!

You are free to use concepts and code contained within elsewhere, ideally with attribution. E.g. if you want to make a spin-off mod for, say, only the Elite changes, you are welcome and encouraged to do so but I'd appreciate a link back to the Balance Mod and/or to my stream.