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[molivious]

On the topic of the game being too easy (just copy-pasting most of my comments in discord with minor edits)

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I wonder if they're purposely trying to make the game this much easier. I mean I understand the part about easing up the grind, but raising the base stats of same-level gear to match the current recommendations(*) seems a bit too much and makes running dungeons a whole joke (on top of boss rooms already being kind of a joke compared to elite rooms** after your first clears), and makes grinding specific/all upgrades more of a chore than a secondary means to overcome said challenges.

(*) I am referring to the additional fortification level that brings our gear closer to the recommended values in map selection.

These extra upgrades are a pretty big deal because they give you additional freedom without having to resort to dedicated armor like the Yammo Chest and Leg pieces.

Games like Hades or Darkest Dungeon 1 for example do implement stat upgrades as an aid to progression, but those upgrades are choices among themselves and the impact is not significant enough on their own to win your runs for you. Even with the best gear and fully upgraded skills in DD (which can get crazy), the scaled up enemies in higher difficulty dungeons can still send you home crying and the meat of the run (exploration) threatening to deplete your resources still acts as a major threat to the entire run itself just as much as the side boss/main bosses are(**) at the end of these dungeons.

(**) Made another topic with some ideas about this

On the idea that this can be solved by simply scaling enemies harder through additional difficulties/frenzies:

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The major problem I see with this is that more dungeon levels mean nothing if the gear we get eventually keep scaling up to that same dungeon progression anyway—just as we've seen with gear now fortifying to lv5, when even at lv4 they were already strong vs F3s. (It's overkill)

If a new set of upgrades drop alongside the release of super frenzies, we're back to this "temporary" problem where the game still ends up becoming a joke and upgrading gear (aka grinding) becomes the centerpiece of the game instead of facing challenging dungeons in the first place.

The dopamine hit you get after struggling through 20 runs and finally conquering a dungeon is quickly lost in this game in its current state, at least compared to many other roguelites with gear progression. Of course you can do self imposed challenges—you can do that in any game, even the hard ones—but that doesn't change the fact that this game is extremely easy right now.

And when you finally upgrade all your gear, there's really not much satisfaction to get there...because...so what. You already stomped the same dungeon 100x more times than you failed; it's not going to help your future dungeon success/completion rates because you already secured 100% success rate before your perilous grind even ended.

I just find it silly that you already have a fairly high chance of completing the hardest dungeons before you even gain any dungeon powers.

In a separate but similar discussion about balancing/keeping the game challenging:

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On top of armor nerfs, I also feel like Light armor should be around 50% of Heavy's defense rather than being this close to each other. In many cases, the Power class only truly offers knockdown resist vs Agile's mobility and the latter has so much more value in comparison.

The Agile class/Light armor still being this bulky feels off.

Another user also commented:

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Armor DR is too good. I wonder if in the future we will see a mode where damage is comparable to running F3 grave with no armor. Assuming you're not running a low damage weapon, cutting yourself off from aspects or any other wack restrictions I put on myself that one time the damage you receive is scary.. but reasonable? 120 damage from a small rot and 2-3 hits from a boss make it hard but it's not ridiculous and you're far from being one-shot by anything.

It's also not just armor being too good, dodging (iframes) and careful repositioning+attack timing also carry you hard in the game. We probably don't need to force everyone to do zero-armor runs, but we can definitely afford to take off these training wheels at higher difficulties. 

Edit: I had some thoughts about enemy variety in a single biome, but I can't think of anything to help expand the idea (especially if enemy-specific drops make a return someday) and make a separate topic for it. I think it might be interesting if more than one boss/minibosses (not multiple in the same room, but a new species of rot) could appear in a single biome. And if for example the minibosses are randomized between these bosses, it could probably get us wondering and excited about which one we'll face in the next miniboss room.

[Wormboi]

Theres also the problem with some armor sets existing to counter one enemy or one mechanic like the gush tree set and the bulbug set. When have you seen some use those armor sets?

[molivious]

14 hours ago, Wormboi said:

Theres also the problem with some armor sets existing to counter one enemy or one mechanic like the gush tree set and the bulbug set. When have you seen some use those armor sets?

Sad part is, they could be really decent if those rots were common and appeared more often. So yeah, I hope they add more of these specific rots to future maps and/or difficulty levels to address that. Maybe throw new ones altogether to add some variety (since a few rots are already being reused between biomes). Edit: or map gimmicks like sandstorms/blizzards that act like wind and push you around

There are also some pieces of armor like Dillo Chest (the entire set, tbh) and Yammo Chest which are not necessarily useless but it's hard to justify a good case to take them over anything else. Minibosses and Bosses hit hard, but not hard enough for you to worry and feel like these pieces would save entire runs. Other set pieces are better for all clearings and not just boss encounters, like Yammo Legs which also takes a slot that is more affordable to use for utility (not much competition between leg gear).

[Sasza22]

They yammo and dillo chests are great for us weaker players that struggle with bosses and minibosses. yes they don`t do anything else but i`m sure a lot of players had trouble with the gourdo twins on their first try. The dillo armor helped quite a bit here. Sometimes you might end up getting a great run just to lose to the boss you haven`t fully figured yet.

The gustree pants are amazing vs the owlitzer but only use case outside of that is the groak. Would be nice if there was some sort of weapon or armor that produced wind also affecting you (maybe the teased boss sets) which might give it a general use case. For the bulbug mask (iirc the pants are actually useful in a shield build) for it to be useful we would need a swarm rot (like mothballs) that start with a shield or ones that gain it when dealing damage. But there are other things like the groak pants that give immunity to spores; can`t see that working unless we would get a way to spawn our own spores.

Anyway i like how the early sets give you simple bonuses that might be worth to level up but later are more specific. I can see more armor pieces in the future being tied to specific playstyles like one synergizing with hit streaks or one increasing damage but lowering your defence or giving lifesteal at the cost of lower max health (similar to powers we currently have), it would open up paths for more risky and powerful builds.

[WolFluoride]

我有一个想法，在疱之祸沼泽之中，在下一波敌人出现时，如果孢子减少了，可以再生出几个孢子（爆炸孢子应该是概率最大的）。或许还可以加入青苔蚊护甲和豆子射手护甲，并且让前者可以产生治疗孢子，后者可以产生爆炸孢子（比如当完美闪避时），会使孢子更加有可玩性。

It'll be nice to spawn a few spores if some of the previous ones have disappeared when the next wave of enemies are coming out in Blisterbane Bog (and blast spores're expected to have the highest possibility).Maybe we can spawn our own spores by adding mossquito equipments and peashooter equipments to this game ; the fist may drop healing spores and the second may drop blast spores when our players Perfect Dodge or something,haha!

[Sasza22]

New spores spawning with each wave would be pretty cool. It could spawn a different type each time. It would also make groaks more common.

Also there should be more types of spores like a shield spore that shields enemies and gives you like 2 shield segments. It would help make the bulbug armor more relevant.
Wind spores pushing everything away like the imbued gustree, toxic spore that makes molded grave poison puddles or a slowing spore that maeks the same effect the mothball shaman does with it`s floating ball.

[WolFluoride]

Actually,i’ve found shield spores and charm spores in the game scripts.Having more kinds of spores is  a really cool idea!

[molivious]

5 hours ago, WolFluoride said:

Actually,i’ve found shield spores and charm spores in the game scripts.Having more kinds of spores is  a really cool idea!

absolutely. I also want rooms to have multiple types of spores, not just one of the same kind in the entire room.