Publicado originalmente por VenIM:

Publicado originalmente por watercolor:

Ascension 13

Yep, I'm planning on toning the Power scaling from ascension level down pretty substantially, I'm ok with how much HP he gets, but the extra damage is more than feels reasonable for how much you could theoretically have built by the end of act 1. Expect that in the next update.

Is that for only the bug character? I was playing Ironclad at the time, I believe.

Publicado originalmente por watercolor:

Publicado originalmente por VenIM:

Yep, I'm planning on toning the Power scaling from ascension level down pretty substantially, I'm ok with how much HP he gets, but the extra damage is more than feels reasonable for how much you could theoretically have built by the end of act 1. Expect that in the next update.

Is that for only the bug character? I was playing Ironclad at the time, I believe.

Ascension scales with the boss itself, so it would work the same on all characters at that ascension level.

I would say the most unbalanced thing is the first boss you made.

Compared to any of the normal bosses, that thing deals way way too much damage at asc20.
I see him dealing something like 7, 20, 3x7, 20, 15, 2x20 (!), while putting multiple stacks of frail on the player. It's too much for act 1. He hits about as hard as the champ does, which is an act 2 boss! Compare this to the regular bosses:

Hexghost who does something like ???, 24, 6, 4, 8, defend, 16, 9, 36, (repeat at +2 str), and adds a couple burns to the deck. (First attack depends on player hp, usually 18~36)
Or slime boss who does nothing, slime, ???, 35, repeat. Until the split, after which it can do at most 36 with debuffs. But, the player can try to get a useful split to potentially skip one of the smaller slimes.
And guardian, which does defend, 3x9, debuff, 4x5, defend, ..., or 10, 2x8 in defense form. Flipping its form (40, 50, 60 dmg needed) causes it to miss a turn too.

I believe part of it is its random intents. Imho he should just use a fixed as-difficult-as-possible sequence in asc-20, but with lower numbers. That way he can't rng-body you as much.

I currently doing ASC 5+, This character is kinda weak compare to the main casts.

There are too many cards required for an archetype to work. It's difficult to win low ASC run compared to others. It still lack its own limit break, or catalyst, or truly game breaking relic+ cards combination. I don't think it could win ASC 15+.

Most of these are just Card Rarity balance , and too slow ramping potential

The Allies Archetype: Need too many cards for Midwife's Hunger to work, The Nailsmith is even worse than Iron Clad's Armament (but is a rare card?). This build lack a exponential Strength ramping.

The Infection Archetype: the Infection Guardian is the only card that quickly ramp up poison, but is RARE, and give you infection as well. It should only be an uncommon card.
I feel like Tainted Husk should also be an Allied type card. (Bug?) Jinn's Soul upgraded still give 1 Temp HP for 1 Infection.
Glowing Womb , Jinn's Soul and Infected Assault are anti synergy with each other. Instead of decreasing Infection, I think GW should give way more Block( or lower Infection Damage), increase Infection instead. Jinn's Soul could be Uncommon, but not exhaust, so we can try to manage our own infection and still have synergy with Infected Assault.

The Focus Archetype???: No Late game ramping??? Only Pure Nail Strike. Even PNS+ still only do 40 DMG with 2 E & 6 souls. Howling Wraith+ is way stronger with 22 AOE Dmg with 2E & 3Souls. PNS should only cost 1E to be viable, since it also use up all Focus for other spells.

Is this a bug that White Lady 's Blessing enable me to always use Focus spell, even when not in Void? If I am not in Void, I can still use Focus Spell, without exhausting them.

The Void Archetype: Void Dash is too weak and expensive for a Rare card, while Shadow Dash is too strong for a Normal card, Shadow Dash should be at least uncommon. We still lack a power that can increase void faster, and 50% more damage for 1 void is too much ( should be like 10% and go up to 50% or sth). Most attack cards in void deck are too expensive, or Exhausted So most void deck = spamming Shadow Dash, and wait. There is no way to build an offensive deck at all.

Over all this is a great mod. I love the way the cards synergy with each others, but the character need buff to have any chance at higher ASC

I have a suggestion, and not being someone who makes mods myself, this may be a very large undertaking. I fully understand if you do not wish to do this.

From my experience with the mod (and I'll be fully honest, I watched a streamer (ThorW) play this mod for a few hours and read the comments in this discussion forum), I've noticed the distinct issue with soul and void. The fact, I found, is that you have an energy mechanic *and* a soul/void mechanic.

My suggestion is: remove turn based energy production.
More specifically, the Bug Knight starts each battle with either 0 or a pre-determined amount of energy (due to trinkets, etc.). As well, remove the energy costs for basic nail attacks and dashes. Then give all basic nail attacks the ability to gain energy (IE your energy is your soul pool for spells). Finally, do not have energy(soul) fade each turn so the next turn you start with the same amount you had the previous turn. To balance soul usage there can be a cap on maximum soul the Bug Knight can have at once for x cost cards and modify some trinkets and/or cards to be able to increase/decrease that maximum either permanently or temporarily.

I find this to fit the thematic of Hollow Knight where you attack to gain energy, then spend that energy for health/spells/large attacks.

As for the issue of void, the main problem seems to be the number cards able to make use of it and the amount of damage you receive as a response. My recommendation is to have a transformative effect for normal cards that, when under the effects of void, have different damage, bonuses and/or abilities. This way, a single void card in a deck that's used won't turn the rest of any normal cards in a deck into a curse.

Once again, I am not a modder, but I can tell it would be a large undertaking. I choose not to learn how to mod because of the amount of work and love you've already poured into making this mod and absolutely have a right to take this suggestion with a grain of salt. However, if you do like the idea and roll with it, I feel it will be a great means to balance the playability.
Thank you.

I quite enjoy playing the Bug Knight, I like the various nail attacks, dash blocks and most mechanics relating to the new keywords like Dash, Spell and Ally.

I will say it doesn't seem like Void or Infection builds are particularly interesting or rewarding currently. Void cards don't seem strong enough to warrant the increased damage you take, nor does Infection. I was interested in Infection at first when I found the card that deals your Infection damage to enemies instead, but building for poison damage feels really unrewarding.
Aside from the Focus mechanics and poison from infection, there's very few status effects available from cards. Only a couple can apply weak or vulnerable, and I haven't found any others.

Generally there's a rather big issue with cards being underpowered for their energy or soul cost, or having too serious a drawback, such as void, infection or exhaust cards. Spells are mostly too weak for their soul cost, and use too much energy too - I would think since you have to build up Soul that most spells would only cost 1 or even 0 energy to use.

I would like a wider variety of Spells too, there doesn't seem to be much outside a minor heal and some basic damage spells - some of which are borderline useless.

i may be late to the party i enjoy your mod a lot. its thematic and cool. it however has very few cost effective cards from what I've seen you seemed to decide most things should be 2 energy an awkward amount to say the least, and for most of them i'd say its unmerited the cost to effect is terribly unbalanced, also i get the hole its supposed to be "Hard" because most people think Hollow Knight is hard... It's not hard its utterly fair and punishes you for mistakes, and i suppose i could look at the over costed cards as your versions of mistakes, but slay the spire already does well on its own at punishing greed, the game on its own can already be brutal if you misplay let alone if you've filled your deck with awkward costed cards that barely do 1 energies worth of effect let alone 2. i do think you got all of the 3 costed cards perfectly costed they are strong and deserve to be that high some even 4 or higher using a gimmick i tossed around in my head that spend souls you gain from effects already placed in the mod as a extended way to pay for higher costed cards. and my final request is for you to add more ways to generate energy or draw cards into your class.

end of semi rant, though i didnt mean for it to feel that way it ended up sounding that way as i reread it. at the end of the day i love you mod even if my decks always end up in a awkward place.

I don't understand the Void nerfs. Void is already the weakest playstyle in my opinion.

The increased damage taken is dreadful, and the bonus block and damage gained is in no way enough to compensate for it unless you have some really broken combinations.

Meanwhile Jinn's Soul + Radiance Lament+ and some infection cards can carry you through basically any fight. You don't need a particular set of artifacts, nor any other card to make it work, tho Sibling Souls, more Laments and Infected Guardian does bring that playstyle to a hilariously broken level.

And for some reason that combination even got buffed with the increased temp health gain.

Those 2 cards in combination is literally a poison silent who also gains 3 times the amount of poison inflicted as permanent block. And all you need is draw a single card to make it work.

Soul builds also got nerfed pretty hard, especially with the Mantis Mark and Vengeful Spirit nerfs.

Soul builds did not have awesome scaling to begin with. They have decent linear scaling, but nothing to write home about.

Linear scaling skills won't go far in the endgame, which is most likely why Ironclad has exponential scaling with Limit Break and Heavy Blade. Meanwhile Bug Knight has essentially Twin Strikes as his best option.

Ally Decks are for the most part just too expensive. You need so many cards for Midwife's Hunger to be usable, and most cards have pretty low impact for the mana cost. And to top this all off, many cards don't interact well in an ally focused deck. Cards like Lurien's Spire, Pale King's Blessing and Infected Guardian are very likely dead cards in a Midwife's Hunger deck.

Allies also don't generate Soul which makes those cards less usable aswell.

For high ascension I really don't feel like any deck outside of Lament based broken combos is going to win.

Publicado originalmente por Varonth:

I don't understand the Void nerfs. Void is already the weakest playstyle in my opinion.

The increased damage taken is dreadful, and the bonus block and damage gained is in no way enough to compensate for it unless you have some really broken combinations.

Meanwhile Jinn's Soul + Radiance Lament+ and some infection cards can carry you through basically any fight. You don't need a particular set of artifacts, nor any other card to make it work, tho Sibling Souls, more Laments and Infected Guardian does bring that playstyle to a hilariously broken level.

And for some reason that combination even got buffed with the increased temp health gain.

Those 2 cards in combination is literally a poison silent who also gains 3 times the amount of poison inflicted as permanent block. And all you need is draw a single card to make it work.

Soul builds also got nerfed pretty hard, especially with the Mantis Mark and Vengeful Spirit nerfs.

Soul builds did not have awesome scaling to begin with. They have decent linear scaling, but nothing to write home about.

Linear scaling skills won't go far in the endgame, which is most likely why Ironclad has exponential scaling with Limit Break and Heavy Blade. Meanwhile Bug Knight has essentially Twin Strikes as his best option.

Ally Decks are for the most part just too expensive. You need so many cards for Midwife's Hunger to be usable, and most cards have pretty low impact for the mana cost. And to top this all off, many cards don't interact well in an ally focused deck. Cards like Lurien's Spire, Pale King's Blessing and Infected Guardian are very likely dead cards in a Midwife's Hunger deck.

Allies also don't generate Soul which makes those cards less usable as well.

For high ascension I really don't feel like any deck outside of Lament based broken combos is going to win.

As for Void. Yeah, you are right. Those nerfs were SUPPOSED to compensate for also changing void penalty to 25% from 50% but I forgot to commit that part of the patch, along with the new Relics. I felt that The increase damage from higher ascensions was making void far too difficult so I wanted to tone down how fast they scale AND how hard they get punished. Wraith Strike is still a bit to strong but I'll let it live for now.

I'm Nerfing Radiance Lament but only slightly, It's probably still going to be problematic at 2 cost.

The Reasoning to Soul Build changes was to try and push towards more interest in Pure Nail and Soul Shaman, since the Soul Vessel and Awoken Dream Nail can both increase your soul limit much higher now. Vengeful Spirits is still probably a bit too strong. It's a 1 cost 12 damage card as long as you just use soul strike before it. and it's an 18 damage 1 cost upgraded.

@Varonth. The new Patch Should have the correct void scaling changes now. And I also toned down the Jinn/Radiance thing. Thanks for pointing that out. Radiance Lament will still be strong but can't pull jinn's anymore.

25% is 25% too much in my opinion, especially as it stacks with vulnurable.

Taking 25% increased damage vs. the act 1 bosses? Sure you may be able to do a good split against Slime Boss with it.

Hexaghost will be problematic, as you very likely cannot play your Void Cards in turn 1 or 2 losing you a massive amount of tempo. This is exaggerated by the increased cost of Jinn's Soul, which hurts energy starved void builds so much harder than infection with Lament (which basically just got buffed).

False Knight will also have a 42 damage turn with 25% increased damage taken.

All of Act 2 seems scary with 25% increased damage taken. 22 damage bandits? 30 damage plant?

Act 3 has things like giant head. If you play on an ascension level in which he starts attacking in 3 turns, taking 25% more damage seems insane.

There are so many ways to make the Void playstyle interesting. The idea of it bringing downsides, like infection bringing a downside isn't bad. But taking increased damage is such a no go for many encounters.

Just some idea:

* You can no longer generate soul (but you won't lose your current amount)
* Non Void Skills cost +1 energy
* Non Void Skills deal 25% less damage
* Non Void Skills have their cost randomized on draw

There is probably much more that can be done with it. I am currently on Ascension 14 with the bug knight, and I don't feel like I would ever take void cards. They just seem like suicide for most encounters.

I posted a while ago, now at lvl 13.

As much as I like the mod, void and infection cards is still just not worth it.

It can only work if you have a combo of them...which is based heavily on luck, which makes it very unreliable and useless 99% of the time.

void and infection cards even without the debuff often times are pretty weak. Very few of them seem worth the drawback, but then again, since it cuts off soul, stuck to having to commit and again reliant heavily on luck.

Also i guess this isnt balance issue but think be cool to see more relics from hollow.

like smith relic can give +2 for strikes.
bug relic doing few dmg per turn randomly.
if comboed w relic, they give you soul just like in the game.
wpn reach relic increase could maybe hit 2 targets at a time.
healing shield relic, when using heal, negate a hit or gain some block.
grub, when hit, gain soul. the power card is just not worth it.

think it can start giving more options what you could do.

I wanted to comment on the Radiance battle.
My recent run was my first decent infection/posion deck. This sort of deck seems hard to pull of usually.

The balance problem is with the Final boss The Radiance. After a few turns it only stops using other abilities and repeats Final Light. This was very bad for my deck as it couldn't deal an average of 25 damage per turn without the poison damage. If the boss could damage me it would be fine but having 'remove infection' cards in my deck caused a stalemate.

This problem could be avoided if I just picked up 1 Sly's Strikes, a Broken Vessel, or even an Infection Assault. Regardless this wasn't a fun first encounter with The Radiance. I hope that this problem is addressed in a future patch.

This could be fixed in a few different ways.

• Give the boss another move in the late stage.
  
• Nerf Final Light to heal less
  
• Buff Final Light to deal more damage as the game goes on and break the stale mate.
  

Thank you very much for the work you put into this. This little vessel would also have thanked you, but it has no mind to thank, no voice to cry appreciation.
(( ))
( oo)
///.\\~=>
-”-”--
Just my thoughts on some of the specific cards, and Void in general:

Note that I use parentheses to indicate upgrades like so [[Strike]]: Deal 6(9) damage.

[[Cyclone Slash]] - A much weaker [[Rampage]]? Of course, [[Rampage]] is an uncommon, but a 1 damage increase each time you play the card seems practically inconsequential.

[[Tainted Husks]] - Applies less poison than [[Deadly Poison]], with the drawbacks of randomness and infection. Apply 3(4) Poison 2 times would make more sense.

[[The Little Fool]] - Severely underwhelming. Damage is tiny, and its only your third time through your deck that it starts giving you card advantage via the Exhausts. This is kind like a much worse [[Flash of Steel]].

[[Baldur Shell]] - Does this only work when you use [[Simple Focus]]? Or all spells that use Focus? If it's the former it seems WAY too weak. 16 Block for a two-card setup with limited uses seems more proper (and thematic~).

[[Quirrel's Assistance]] - This is a strictly worse [[Sucker Punch]] (ignoring upgrades). The usefulness of the Weak is much reduced due to not being targetable. You could look to [[Intimidate]] and [[Thunderclap]] for something like "Weak to ALL enemies", but if I may suggest something different: How about a ...2 energy Power with "(Apply 1 Vulnerable to ALL enemies.) Applies 1 Vulnerable at the start of every second turn to ALL enemies."? I'm not sure how difficult that is to implement, (and it might be too strong, honestly...but then powers often are I guess) but it seems quite thematic via the Uuwuu fight.

[[Infection Assault]] - Upgraded 8+4 damage for every Infection feels a bit too strong. Maybe 3 per Infection? Not sure about this.

[[Mawlek's Shell]] - Cool idea to have a recurring Dexterity generator, but 1 Dexterity for 2 energy is just not that great. You would only get this if you need to generate infection for something, and even then it is very expensive (and I believe you should generally consider infection a drawback). It could be that 1 energy cost would make it too easy to play and over a few deck cycles build up the Dex too high to be balanced, so if you make it 1 energy consider adding a cost like "Draw 1 card less next turn".

[[Hornet's Help]] - The "Gain X block" adds very little, and the random X damage 4 times is pretty lame too, especially for a rare card. It's common for X cards to be weak when paying only one energy, but this one is worse than a strike, and doesn't scale that well (due to the randomness). Not a very interesting card either. Maybe add something like "Gain X-1(2) energy." afterwards to indicate how Hornet is keeping the enemies off your back.

[[Lifeblood Core]] - Maybe a little too strong, even for a rare card? This is like [[Entrench]], but cheaper AND you get to keep the temp HP for the whole fight (not just the next turn like [[Blur]]). Of course it has Ethereal, Exhaust, and is rare card. Honestly this should probably be 2 energy or something.

[[Midwife's Hunger]] - Really weak?? Compared with something like [[Perfected Strike]] (which assumes you already have ~5 strikes by default = 16 total damage), 2 energy for what, like, 3 damage assuming you have 2 Ally cards already (since there are no Ally synergies below rare, there's no reason to have many Ally cards). Of course this has potential to grow fast with strength, but there are also not that many strength cards below rare, and you need like 4 total Ally cards, 2 of which are [[Mantis Mark]]s, and one of those upgraded to get up to 16 damage, whereas [[Perfected Strike]] just needs you to not to get rid of your [[Strike]]s. Of course the potential multiplicative growth is higher than [[Perfected Strike]], but this suits a rare card.
Maybe increase the base damage to something a little more initially appealing: "Deal 6 damage 1 time for every permanent Ally in your deck." This way it is at least an OK card assuming you have one Ally already (12 damage), and decent if you have two (18 damage). Even so maybe a little boring?

Void in general - I haven't picked any void cards since they generally seem pretty weak, so obviously don't put a lot of weight to my words here. The biggest problem with Void is that it is a very hard synergy: it only helps other Void cards. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that there aren't that many Void cards, and those you do run into are too underpowered if you don't already have Void: [[Shadow Dash]], [[Vengeful Void]] and [[Wraith Strike]], 3/4 commons are just not cards you would pick on their own (even IGNORING the extra damage due to void!). AND 3/4 Void commons Exhaust, removing even the possibility of self-synergy, and weakening the hard synergy overall.
Why not let Void give bonus damage to other spells too? This would soften the synergy, and spells are already limited by focus, so it shouldn't over-buff that archetype (not that there are many non-Void damage-dealing spells!).
I realise Exhaust is supposed to be a theme with Void cards (and I don't know what you should do with [[Sibling's Shadow]] without all the Exhausts), but the combination of a very hard synergy with Exhaust is just awkward, especially if you consider longer fights. I would suggest looking at vanilla StS Exhaust cards for inspiration: they are generally very impactful, since Exhaust is a big drawback.
All my arguments here was made without even considering the extra damage taken due to Void. This seems to be a completely unneeded nerf, besides being interesting thematically.
Compliments on the nice soft synergy [[Sibling's Souls]] tho. (wait that should be Siblings' or Sibling)

[[Mantis Mark]] - Technically not balance-related - should be a Power instead of an Exhaust-Skill, like [[Inflame]] and [[Footwork]].

I will try to suggest a "few" changes to this mode to make it more fun and "balanced".
Because these changes are sugestions you doesn't need apply them all but few

Two main problems of this mod are:

• Bloated amount of cards,
  
• Void and Soul cards being mutually exclusive.

These two things make finding synergysting cards nearly imposible.

Additional problems that should be mentioned are:

• Possibility to remove all of your infection by playing a card non-rare card. (Infection should be a drawback, and removing it should be reward in itself. { Orange Pellets are fine. })
  
• Drawing 6 cards at the start of a turn. (Not a negative by itself, but it affects card balance in negative way)
  
• Most of the cards feel like their upgrade should be their base form.

From that part I will be sugesting changes.

Negatives of Void should be reduced to just taking additional damage.
*note: If you feel like its to much of a buff, you might add to this: being unable to GAIN focus.

Changes to relics:

• Pale Ore: Cards containing "Strike" or "Slash" deal 2 additional damage.
  
• The King's Brand: At the start of the turn gain 1 additional soul, if you have infection.
  
• Tram Pass: Cards gained from non-combat encounters are upgraded. (Now also upgrades cards from events.)
  
• Void Idol: Replaces Knight's Mask. Gain 3 Void at the beginning of your turn.
  
  
• Knight's Mask: Gain 2 Soul at the beginning of your turn.
  *note: this change should make the KingsSoul direct upgrade as well as give player more possibilities when it comes to deck building and make decks more consistent. (I know in game you gain soul by attaking enemies, but as I said it gives more possibilities when it comes to deck building)
  *Edit: I figured something else.

New relics:

• Grubsong (common): At the beginning of your turn, if you were attacked last turn gain 1 additional soul.
  *note: Grubsong in a card form is felt to risky/bad to take and more like common relic effect, also few cards need to be removed.
  
• Siblings Help (rare): Your first card that exhausts each turn is discarded instead.
  *note: It is a relic that helps decks that are not Soul focused.

As I said these changes are a sugestion and you don't have to apply any of them.