Ocean Items and Ballancing

[prezera]

As It stands, most of the items you can get in the ocean are pretty much clones of items that exist on land, but worse (cookie cutter cap, most foods, strident trident to some extent, etc). The problem is, if you buff these items, living in the ocean could become too easy. Not buffing them could be an option, but other than Lunar Island and maybe salt, there is no real point to try and get these items since there are easier and better options on land.

So, what's the awnser to this problem? 

'Massively' buff one aspect of the item and 'massively' nerf another. This way, the item isn't necessarily any better, but if you have the right tools to mitigate the nerf, the item can become a better option than it's land clone.

For example, let's look at Barnacle Nigiri. Barnacle Nigiri is the oceans version of pierogi, but with a more specific recipe and spoils at double the speed (which makes it a lot worse than pierogi). To buff/nerf it, I would increase the amount of HP it gives to 50 and increase the spoil time all the way down to 3-5 days. By doing this, Barnacle Nigiri still isn't that much better then how it was before, but, if you have killed bee queen and was going to bundle wrap your healing foods anyways / need to eat the healing food you made as soon as it's finished cooking, all of a sudden Barnacle Nigiri looks like a better choice.

Something I noticed is that Klei has already done this and that those are the sea items people actually go for. Particularly salt boxes and stone fruit. Salt boxes are an ice box clone, with the buff being that the food now rots 75% slower and the nerf being that it can only hold ingredients. Stone fruit are a juicy berry clone with the buff being that you can choose when you want to use the food / grows very fast / grows during winter / slightly slower rotting speed / counts as a vegetable / are renewable, and the nerf being that you need to pick them at a specific time / you need to constantly give them rot (maybe a bit too many buffs, but you get the point).

A new item that could follow this pattern could be something like a bat bat that does more damage than a dark sword but instead of giving you health, it takes it away. Now the item wouldn't be too much better than the dark sword because of the risk of literally accidentally killing yourself, but for more experienced players who know how to kite and have the heals needed to make this effect not as bad, the weapon would be a much better choice. Best part is, both are still meta! Instead of one being blatantly better than the other, it becomes a situational thing.

Thanks for coming to my Ted talk. Sorry if this is a bad idea.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

i like that weapon concept

was fun the wendy and abi hp mechanic, could be fun to have a weapon with it

[ShadowDuelist]

I think a reverse batbat type of weapon could work: Deals slow damage for holding it, raises sanity when hitting enemies. Perhaps if you are at full sanity it won't deal damage to you.

And the lower your health is, the more damage you deal, with a basic damage of 59.5 (fresh hambat damage) when you are at 100% hp, and a max damage of 81 when you are at 20% hp or lower (1.2x dark sword damage, that's more than a morning star does to a wet enemy)

It could be a blood sword, or something?

[Pedro cc]

I would like the Trident to be able to atack extremely fast but it's also slippery

And for the malbatros beak to be usable as a shovel, if it wasn't hilariously enough to use it as a rowing paddle

[Yuuko]

I really like this line of reasoning.  If the glass cutter did more damage than a dark sword with even less durability.  I imagine 100 damage per attack would be very attractive for some fights, enough that I might want to travel to the lunar island to craft these, even if it had only 50 durability (100 vs shadow.)

idk if Klei will do this though - I don't think they care if half the items in the game can't justify their crafting.  Either something is good, or it isn't :\ and that's kinda what you deal with...

[prezera]

55 minutes ago, Shosuko said:

Idk if Klei will do this though - I don't think they care if half the items in the game can't justify their crafting.  Either something is good, or it isn't :\ and that's kinda what you deal with...

I doubt they are going to change the items that already exist but there is still a lot of room for new items that follow the salt box pattern. Just hoping we don't get more items that are useless to someone not making a boat base in literally every single scenario 

[Well-met]

13 hours ago, PrezPara said:

Salt boxes are an ice box clone,  Stone fruit are a juicy berry clone

I'm not quite certain your definition of the word "clone" is correct.

Salt box is very much different from ice box, stonefruits are very much different from berries.

This is like saying the insulated backpack is a "chest clone" because it can carry things.

[SinancoTheBest]

11 hours ago, Pedrito said:

I would like the Trident to be able to atack extremely fast but it's also slippery

And for the malbatros beak to be usable as a shovel, if it wasn't hilariously enough to use it as a rowing paddle

Yess, this please! Like Pick-Axe from Ruins is an axe and a pickaxe at  the same time, giving Malbatross Beak the abilities of a 1st class oar AND a Regal Shovel would be awesome and make the item a worthwhile loot.

[Notecja]

Strident Trident could use some charging for optionaly bigger area of effect. The fact of getting hard and rare loot with so little effect was a bit dissapointing. My expectations were for whole screen of destruction...

[.]

YES, I couldn't tell this better. This is really annoying and so much item have this problem. Player will craft winterhat instead if earmuffs or craft puffy vest instead of breezy vest. There is so much thing I can't even remember. I have few solution ideas too!

Science machine is one of the building ignored bc of alchemy engine. I hammer it after I prototype an Alchemy Engine and never craft it again. Recipes should need diferent science machine to craft. I mean we shouldn't able to prototype sm items (like spear) on alchemy engine or shouldn't able to prototype ae items (like hambat) on science machine. This will make klei give us sm skins to!

Breezy vest can slow down player a bit

Earmuff can have same system with hambat. We can put it on icebox. It's kinda gross, just a idea lol.

[Well-met]

4 minutes ago, Slagger said:

YES, I couldn't tell this better. This is really annoying and so much item have this problem. Player will craft winterhat instead if earmuffs or craft puffy vest instead of breezy vest. There is so much thing I can't even remember. I have few solution ideas too!

Earmuffs just got a nice buff.

Breezy vest is for late autumn. Puffy can't be crafted until winter and is a rightful upgrade.

[prezera]

4 hours ago, Well-met said:

I'm not quite certain your definition of the word "clone" is correct.

Salt box is very much different from ice box, stonefruits are very much different from berries.

This is like saying the insulated backpack is a "chest clone" because it can carry things.

It's more like saying the insulated pack is a backpack clone.

I threw the word clone around because I didn't know what else to call them, but they are basically just items that are kind of related to each other? Icebox and Saltbox are both structures that you place food inside. I called Saltbox a clone of icebox because icebox came out first, that's all. After reading it again I do think that the stone fruit being related to the juicy berries is a stretch but the similarities are there.

[DarkPulse91]

I honestly love the strident trident. But the fact it's basically useless on land is what really weighs it down.

If they would just let it do 68 damage a the time. It would give people the SLIGHTEST reason to actually make it. It's more durable than a dark sword, has a special ocean ability. And doesn't drain sanity... But it's just so expensive to craft

And sadly it's one of those "it just makes sense" recipes because a trident has 3 prongs so of course it needs 3 horns. But the RNG of the gnarwails spawning makes it so time consuming and can take multiple in game days just to hunt enough for it.

So if they made either the recipe cheaper or not be weaker on land. That would be at least a decent buff.

And maybe make the malbatross bill do more damage than just an axe. Maybe as much as a battle spear or tentacle spike. That would make it at least USEFUL to non-sailors

[DirtWolf]

9 minutes ago, DarkPulse91 said:

I honestly love the strident trident. But the fact it's basically useless on land is what really weighs it down.

Just give it a unique /dance emote where it makes your character perform an endless guitar solo.

[Yuuko]

16 hours ago, Well-met said:

I'm not quite certain your definition of the word "clone" is correct.

Salt box is very much different from ice box, stonefruits are very much different from berries.

This is like saying the insulated backpack is a "chest clone" because it can carry things.

But he's right.  Clone is exactly the word you would use, because if you were to create these as mod items the first thing you would do is clone X script file and make modifications from there lol.

Fridge - craftable food storage that slows spoilage.
Salt Box - copy that ++ greatly improved slow spoilage -- can only hold raw ingredients

Berry Bush - relocatable food source, requires fertilization, unable to be crafted.
Stone Fruit - copy that ++ provides higher yield, is vegi type for perogies, also gives rocks, renewable through harvesting, grows through winter, others -- must be picked when ripe compared to berry always ready once grown, requires fertilizer more often, only found on lunar island.

Like literally these are all examples of a clone item with different modifications / restrictions to make them interesting options.  Your contrasting example of "insulated backpack == chest" is either thoughtless or purposefully mismatched in a vain attempt to prove a bad point.  What you'd say about the insulated backpack relative to this discussion is pretty obvious:

Backpack - Equipable item that provides additional carry slots
Insulated Backpack - copy that ++ slows food spoilage.