Reworking Lunacy (Discussion)

[Pet Rock]

In my opinion, lunacy is severely lacking as an equivalent to sanity. This is because of 2 issues:

Presence: Lunacy is not present throughout much of the early game and even in the late game it is still gated to certain zones/times.

Threat: Being enlightened is not very threatening. This would partially be fixed by increasing the presence of lunacy, but lunacy gestalts still have no way of damaging players directly.

 

My personal solution to these issues would be this:

1. Rework the system of lunacy entirely, so it increases gradually when near sources of lunacy instead of instantly switching from sanity to lunacy. A flood of light would fill the sanity meter remain near sources of lunacy when sanity is already full, resembling the changing moon phases or an eyelid opening (with a similar eye icon to the current lunacy icon appearing). Losing sanity by any means first drains this bar before once again reducing sanity itself.

2. Add more sources of lunacy. With the new lunacy system, many mobs could be given a lunacy aura, whether they are mutated by the moon indirectly or are direct lunar powers. Full moons should also always build lunacy.

3. Add greater gestalts as lunacy creatures and give them more attacks. Greater gestalts (with tweaked damage) would be a great way to add to the threat of high lunacy. They should also have 3 new attacks based on each phase of celestial champion, a series of dashes (for phase 1), a beyblade attack (for phase 2), and a slam (for phase 3). Lunacy greater gestalts would each only have access to a random one of these, but those that spawn in the archives would have access to all 3. Also, greater gestalts are always aggressive (including archive greater gestalts).

(4). Lunacy gestalts should be tangible. This is less inconsistent with other forces of the mind and gives players a way to counter greater gestalts that spawn at high lunacy. Also full moons should no longer have associations with nightmare fuel (pig stakes dropping nightmare fuel, nightmare creatures spawning from marble sculptures).

 

While I think I have some neat ideas, I would love to see what others think. Should the lunacy system be reworked at all? Should anything that increases sanity contribute to the lunacy bar if sanity is full? What else could be done to make lunacy more threatening? Feel free to comment your ideas.

[cybers2001]

Have you met my friend the inimical gestalt?

Lunacy is a weirdly counter-intuitive system. I get that it’s meant to be the polar opposite of sanity, and that you “counter” lunacy by being insane, but then we get the crown where we can stay full lunacy, get infinite light, *and* be neutral to gestalts. Maybe if it’s like you said where lunacy was another scale up from sanity and being full sane just put you halfway between insanity and lunacy, it could work better.

so you’d have:

insane <> sane <> lunacy  

When you’re in darkness, your sanity steadily drops. When your sanity goes up, it caps at sane, except during full moons or on the moon, your sanity continues into lunacy.

If it was like this, then it could also work to add more threats on the extreme lunacy side, as players *shouldnt* have full lunacy at any point.

[Wawchik]

It just should be more threatening because the only threat enlightenment poses before killing Scion is the horrible filter. 

[Pet Rock]

1 hour ago, cybers2001 said:

Have you met my friend the inimical gestalt?

I don't think inimical gestalts are fit to be lunacy creatures since they seem to be a physical manifestation of lunar energy (considering it uses pure brilliance). I'd rather if they inherited the greater gestalt's new moves and showed up as another lunar thrall. For the time being, they at least make lunacy more threatening in the endgame

1 hour ago, cybers2001 said:

When you’re in darkness, your sanity steadily drops. When your sanity goes up, it caps at sane, except during full moons or on the moon, your sanity continues into lunacy.

I agree with this but (assuming maximum lunacy does not increase overtime) it wouldn't allow certain creatures to inflict lunacy. Maybe they could add a flat value to the cap when they are near players? Should creatures even inflict lunacy outside of lunacy zones/times?

Edited July 6, 2025 by Pet Rock

[cybers2001]

3 hours ago, Pet Rock said:

I agree with this but (assuming maximum lunacy does not increase overtime) it wouldn't allow certain creatures to inflict lunacy. Maybe they could add a flat value to the cap when they are near players? Should creatures even inflict lunacy outside of lunacy zones/times?

If we assume that sane is the default state, we could follow the same rules as insanity. Night/caves trend towards insane, fullmoon/moon island trends towards lunacy. Otherwise you trend towards sane. Shadow creatures normally don’t interact with you until you’re insane, just as gestalts don’t appear until you’re at lunacy, but just as deerclops can show up and dump your sanity, crystal deerclops can similarly boost you to lunacy.

[BeeClops]

if anything I'd rework the filter so it's not eye bleach 

[ZeRoboButler]

8 hours ago, BeeClops said:

if anything I'd rework the filter so it's not eye bleach 

or at the very least, have some settings to adjust either the intensity of the effect or something like that. We got accessibility for quakes, lightning, bloom effects and even the shadows cast by the fig trees, not sure why we don't have a setting for it in the first place but my guess was time allotted and plans not aligning.

[Milordo]

Well said! 

On 7/6/2025 at 5:07 PM, Pet Rock said:

1. Rework the system of lunacy entirely, so it increases gradually when near sources of lunacy instead of instantly switching from sanity to lunacy. A flood of light would fill the sanity meter remain near sources of lunacy when sanity is already full, resembling the changing moon phases or an eyelid opening (with a similar eye icon to the current

(4). Lunacy gestalts should be tangible. This is less inconsistent with other forces of the mind and gives players a way to counter greater gestalts that spawn at high lunacy. Also full moons should no longer have associations with nightmare fuel (pig stakes dropping nightmare fuel, nightmare creatures spawning from marble sculptures).

I want to add also that the "insanity bar" and "lunacy bar" should be separated, so you can't cheese them by jumping off and on the boat and lunar island or caves and lunar grotto, if you know what I mean. Gestalts absolutely should be able to be killed, zero reasons why, and they should drop glass obviously.

On 7/6/2025 at 5:07 PM, Pet Rock said:

While I think I have some neat ideas, I would love to see what others think. Should the lunacy system be reworked at all? Should anything that increases sanity contribute to the lunacy bar if sanity is full? What else could be done to make lunacy more threatening? Feel free to comment your ideas.

Unfortunately I don't know have any idea to add or what to say, not because I don't have the creativity to have it but because literally we have the whole world of possibilities. As it stands, lunacy has only gestalts. You have full freedom on the craziness of mechanics and interactions that you can add.

On 7/6/2025 at 11:48 PM, cybers2001 said:

If we assume that sane is the default state, we could follow the same rules as insanity. Night/caves trend towards insane, fullmoon/moon island trends towards lunacy. Otherwise you trend towards sane. Shadow creatures normally don’t interact with you until you’re insane, just as gestalts don’t appear until you’re at lunacy, but just as deerclops can show up and dump your sanity, crystal deerclops can similarly boost you to lunacy.

I want to add, therefore it should be caves and ruins towards insane and ocean and lunar island towards lunacy.

[NSAiswatchingus]

On 7/7/2025 at 3:16 PM, ZeRoboButler said:

or at the very least, have some settings to adjust either the intensity of the effect or something like that. We got accessibility for quakes, lightning, bloom effects and even the shadows cast by the fig trees, not sure why we don't have a setting for it in the first place but my guess was time allotted and plans not aligning.

It's insane that this game is renown for its beautiful visuals and artwork yet they make an item that makes it as visually unappealing as possible. I am getting pretty good at inimical gestalt dodging though taking the crown on and off so much to give my eyes a break.

When you slot the last jewel...

Edited July 9, 2025 by NSAiswatchingus