The things that irk me the most are the changes to Psyring and Enchant Quality. Psyrings were a fun way to bring skills to chars that could not usually take them, opening up a lot of interesting strategies. And I believe they could have been nerved by increasing the cost in Eltex instead, a material that is hard enough to acquire.

And with Enchant Quality being limited to Good quality, it barely makes sense to use anymore, and turns it into a fringe-case ability, to upgrade quest rewards. Any crafter will be able to produce Good quality items regularly.


TLDR; Bring ability to craft Psyring rings, raise Enchant Quality limit back to Excellent.

Think plantskip was hit too hard. 1 year of age for not even a guarantee mature plant seems rough. keep the year and guarantee maturity (id say at even higher radius) or remove year and just make it possible cost 2 casts to maturity in its range.

Chronopath is a bit rough in general, due to the age mechanic its already very restrictive to cast anything. I think fortelling shouldnt have a age cost. or the restore age cast needs to be more then 2 years.

Originally posted by Haekel:

The things that irk me the most are the changes to Psyring and Enchant Quality. Psyrings were a fun way to bring skills to chars that could not usually take them, opening up a lot of interesting strategies. And I believe they could have been nerved by increasing the cost in Eltex instead, a material that is hard enough to acquire.

And with Enchant Quality being limited to Good quality, it barely makes sense to use anymore, and turns it into a fringe-case ability, to upgrade quest rewards. Any crafter will be able to produce Good quality items regularly.


TLDR; Bring ability to craft Psyring rings, raise Enchant Quality limit back to Excellent.

What do you mean changes to Psyrings irk you. It wasn't a change, it was a bug fix. Psyrings was never meant to be used to learn 'Craft Psyrings', because then all you need is one Technomancer and you can make any psyrings of any psycasts. Now, if you want to imbue your psycasts onto a ring, the pawn also needs to be a technomancer.

Rings being able to be imbued with 'craft psyring' was a bug that I missed.

Overall wont be able to test in game too fast, feel ike a few of these are going to bork the CE patch. However, from reading alone, feel like im reading season 1 of diablo 4 patch notes (joke fo r anyone that gets it) all nerfs no buffs. the overpowered ish stuff obviously got targeted, and i can see most of it being fair, increased costs and heat make sense but the ones that have extra (like the fail chances and hard caps im not sure about yet)

there are like 20 psycasts i never ever use, was hoping to see buffs to the least used but unless you know what those are and the fact its subjective might make that harder.

Think the Scales with sensitivity is where some "buffs" happen, but im not sure the rate of scale so maybe im under estimating it.

For the finger sacrifice, what happens if that pawn loses teh whole arm and is grown back? does the hedif lock with the pawn forever? so even a new hand doesnt work?

Have to say, since you specifically asking, definitely not a fan, sorry.

As Haekel above, particularly Enchant Quality (the only thing I've been vaguley regularly using in a playthrough I started in April) being capped at Good makes it kind of pointless.

Every change I could see in the notes was a downgrade, which makes it feel like it's just not worth using psycasting at all (given the opportunity cost of the amount of micromanagement, something it was already struggling with) verses just... Shooting with guns (or using Rimworld of Magic).

It seems like now you get less psyfocus, to use less often, to achieve less.

The change to Resurrect seems to make it something I would never, ever, *ever* use (and before... It was already highly dubious).

I think the only change I could say was positive was the change to gaining the first psycaster level.

This was clearly done to vastly tone down the power level of the mod, but I'm sorry, Oskar and the VE team, you've basically toned it down beyond the point I would want to play with it again. (I doubt I will use anything from it in the remainder of my playthrough, even.)

Sorry, folks, I hate to have to be not positive with all the work you all put in; but by the same token, it helps no-one if I don't say anything at all.

Originally posted by Oskar Potocki:

What do you mean changes to Psyrings irk you. It wasn't a change, it was a bug fix. Psyrings was never meant to be used to learn 'Craft Psyrings', because then all you need is one Technomancer and you can make any psyrings of any psycasts. Now, if you want to imbue your psycasts onto a ring, the pawn also needs to be a technomancer.

Rings being able to be imbued with 'craft psyring' was a bug that I missed.

Doesn't that just make Technomancer a necessary class on psycasters, something you *have* to take to spread around the love using rings?

And bug or not, it was the status quo for a long time, so it is still a change/nerf.

the only nerf that makes no sense to me is that regrow limb no longer heals scars. from a gameplay perspective, it's weird that i can't restore a part that is permanently at 1hp, but if I lop it off, it'll come back just fine. If there is supposed to be a lore reason behind it, then it has to come from a fundamental misunderstanding of what scars are.

Originally posted by Reidlos:

Overall wont be able to test in game too fast, feel ike a few of these are going to bork the CE patch. However, from reading alone, feel like im reading season 1 of diablo 4 patch notes (joke fo r anyone that gets it) all nerfs no buffs. the overpowered ish stuff obviously got targeted, and i can see most of it being fair, increased costs and heat make sense but the ones that have extra (like the fail chances and hard caps im not sure about yet)

there are like 20 psycasts i never ever use, was hoping to see buffs to the least used but unless you know what those are and the fact its subjective might make that harder.

Think the Scales with sensitivity is where some "buffs" happen, but im not sure the rate of scale so maybe im under estimating it.

For the finger sacrifice, what happens if that pawn loses teh whole arm and is grown back? does the hedif lock with the pawn forever? so even a new hand doesnt work?

Yes. Hediff will track forever. Essentially, each pawn only has 10 resurrections.

Originally posted by Aotrs Commander:

Have to say, since you specifically asking, definitely not a fan, sorry.

As Haekel above, particularly Enchant Quality (the only thing I've been vaguley regularly using in a playthrough I started in April) being capped at Good makes it kind of pointless.

Every change I could see in the notes was a downgrade, which makes it feel like it's just not worth using psycasting at all (given the opportunity cost of the amount of micromanagement, something it was already struggling with) verses just... Shooting with guns (or using Rimworld of Magic).

It seems like now you get less psyfocus, to use less often, to achieve less.

The change to Resurrect seems to make it something I would never, ever, *ever* use (and before... It was already highly dubious).

I think the only change I could say was positive was the change to gaining the first psycaster level.

This was clearly done to vastly tone down the power level of the mod, but I'm sorry, Oskar and the VE team, you've basically toned it down beyond the point I would want to play with it again. (I doubt I will use anything from it in the remainder of my playthrough, even.)

Sorry, folks, I hate to have to be not positive with all the work you all put in; but by the same token, it helps no-one if I don't say anything at all.

That is fine, I never expected everyone to agree. I don't think the nerfs were that substantial - my goal was to stop some psycasts trivialising the base game mechanics. I think this is a step in the right direction. We will monitor feedback and adjust things accordingly.

Let me start off by saying I Love this update. Sure there are nerfs left and right but that’s to be expected seeing how OP the casters get with certain combinations (regrow limbs and rezing).

I like the changes to Chronmancer simply because there wasn’t alot of consequences for using some of their abilities and the whole siphoning age from people was almost an afterthought after extensive use of their abilities, now I wish there was more of that “give and take” in using and regaining age with using Chronomancy.

Thank god you guys nerfed word of immunity. It just trivialized diseases at any point in the game.
Love the nerf to regrow limbs…except that “not healing scars” bit, that’s going to take some getting used to. ( or maybe it finally gives healer mech serums worth again)

Love the new “most abilities scale with psychic sensitivity” thing this patch has, along with the “level limit” really gives a sense of having multiple people with individual roles rather than one super versatile mage.

The resurrect fix is really funny to me (getting a slave or a throwaway to spend ridiculous amounts of time getting to that ability is similar to freezing your people waiting to get a resurrecting serum), also going to be saving all my necropath neurotrainers for a rainy day.

Love the change to Word of Animals, no more free thrumbos for me.

The Enchant quality is an interesting choice, kind of would’ve liked it more if it could upgrade the quality as a chance (scaling with sensitivity) or end up damaging it or destroying it instead (capping out at masterwork but really that’s similar to getting a legendary for a normal creation), that way it incentives the player to use Mend to repair in order to try again.

The first path random choice changes are nice, I would've liked it to become a mod option for those few who liked the randomness of it.

All in all this should shake things up, sure people are not going to like it. Some are into the power fantasy, some are into the pain, whichever the case, it should make some good stories.

I feel like having an optional mod to make it more balanced would've been better than forcing everyone who enjoyed the mod for what it was to play it the way you feel it should be played. It is your mod, so y'know, your choice, but if the point of the mod is to have fun, I don't see why you'd change so much without giving us an alternative.

I'm sure at some point someone may just release a pre-patched version of the mod and my complaints will be null, but again, just kinda sucks that "balance" has overtaken enjoyment for me, and as far as I know there's no way to just change to a previous version of the mod (though I may just be dumb)

Originally posted by Paco Wallo III:

I feel like having an optional mod to make it more balanced would've been better than forcing everyone who enjoyed the mod for what it was to play it the way you feel it should be played. It is your mod, so y'know, your choice, but if the point of the mod is to have fun, I don't see why you'd change so much without giving us an alternative.

I'm sure at some point someone may just release a pre-patched version of the mod and my complaints will be null, but again, just kinda sucks that "balance" has overtaken enjoyment for me, and as far as I know there's no way to just change to a previous version of the mod (though I may just be dumb)

The link to the full changelist document has a dropbox link that lets you download a pre-balance version of VPE.

Originally posted by thesmashbro:

Originally posted by Paco Wallo III:

I feel like having an optional mod to make it more balanced would've been better than forcing everyone who enjoyed the mod for what it was to play it the way you feel it should be played. It is your mod, so y'know, your choice, but if the point of the mod is to have fun, I don't see why you'd change so much without giving us an alternative.

I'm sure at some point someone may just release a pre-patched version of the mod and my complaints will be null, but again, just kinda sucks that "balance" has overtaken enjoyment for me, and as far as I know there's no way to just change to a previous version of the mod (though I may just be dumb)

The link to the full changelist document has a dropbox link that lets you download a pre-balance version of VPE.

The issue with that is that, wanting to go back to an un-nerfed version of the mod means dealing with all the issues of running an unsupported version of the mod. The resurrect nerf means that you are sacrificing pawn manipulation PERMANENTLY (even replacing the whole arm or using devmode cannot remove this) in order to resurrect people. VPE in its prior state was a godsend for colonies that wanted to stay at the tribal or medieval stages because dealing with late game threats without VPE was borderline impossible without serious wealth management and killbox cheese. VPE allowed you to get out of the killbox and also to be able to deal with mechanoids and oversized outlander raids with neolithic level equipment.

A lot of comments likely come from the perspective of people who play with things like Simple Sidearms or Rimworld of Magic, so it's not a big deal to have a molotov or thunderbolt in your pocket already, devaluing similar psycasts. The blanket nerf seems in line with the intent to match it to a vanilla/Vanilla Expanded playstyle.

The psyring thing always felt cheesy. Plantskip seems harshly hit, though even in a previous playthrough with a casting ideology, the pawn I had with it didn't really use it that often. Enchant quality being limited to good essentially means that it's a wasted point in most established colonies. I never thought resurrect was that attractive in practice, partly because I don't personally play with settings where colonist death is common, but the mechanics and implementation are cool. Spamming psycasts is fun, but things are largely much less spammable now.

The nerf to spending points on level-ups removes my anxiety over spending too many points on psycasts when I could theoretically try and find a psytrainer.

My honest opinion is nothing in this patch makes it worth playing. Everything patched makes things worse.

Let's start with Stat levelling. Removing Psyfocus gain from levelling kind of removes the reason for levelling. I never found heat limit to be a problem as I would run out of psyfocus before gaining to much heat and heat recovery runs into the same problem. Psysensitivity is a trade off to begin with, any droner would put my colonies close to breaking and mood breaks are general the biggest danger to your colony. So the only reason to level was psyfocus gain.

Maximum level exists now, okay interesting idea neither good nor bad.

The random path when you gain the first level is a good mechanic for introducing the paths to the player. It gives a simple starting point that shows how far you can go without overwhelming players. It should probably be an option that players can turn off rather than removed.

The Psycast nerfs are brutal and I didn't see any buffs. Sure, some now scale with sensitivity but as before sensitivity is a trade off. Things like crop burst and tree sprout weren't particularly strong to begin with and would only work as an attempt to salvage a dying colony. Enchant Quality is rendered useless by a crafting 11 production specialist and Mend now restores less for higher cost when it wasn't that good to begin with.

Some things need a nerd but overall this patch just seems to make things worse to play with not better leaving me to ask, what is the reason to play with this patch rather than without it?

Well, after seeing some things and reading the rest... let's say that I'd be quite irritated not getting a legitimate full reset on points spent if I were squeamish about using dev mode to make corrections.

I admit the psycasts were kind of taking over the focus of the game (or could as the psycaster grows in level), which had been a reason I avoided playing the mod for a long time until trying it recently, so making it balanced is not an enviable task. But the mass nerfs just feel... bad. I'm not saying the design or balance choices are necessarily bad, but having played it before these changes and now after?

It simply feels bad, as a player.