Hunter's Path Beta - Feedback and Thoughts

[Kacpert25]

I waited to write this post until after the latest beta post. 
It's finally here, so as the title suggests, I'll be sharing my feedback and thoughts on some of the changes in the latest beta.

New Mini Bosses:

These are, of course, brilliantly created. I really like the evolution of the enemies basic attacks into mini bosses.
But I think everyone would agree that the worst of them is Bulbin King. Maybe it's the first major enemy the player encounters, but it could still have more than one attack.
Besides, it's a Bulbin King, but it doesn't roll at all like other bulbins. It should have an attack similar to the imbued bulbin before changes. That is, a roll across the entire room (with the appropriate indicator of course). 
Additionally, when Bulbin King hit in room wall from its roll, it could cause trees to shake, causing several paincones to fall.

As for the other new mini-bosses, I'd suggest a slight graphical change to the Noxin.
This one has two horns in its design, which it grabs when splitting into two smaller Noxins. And these smaller Noxins have the same graphics as the original.

Spoiler

And that's my suggestion. Maybe the smaller Noxins could only have one horn? Each could have one horn in the middle, or one Noxin could have one left horn, and the other Noxin would have one right horn.
A little visualization of this:

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Old Mini Bosses:

Since the old mini bosses are no longer simply imbued versions of a strong opponent, but with more health. And they're separate creatures, it would be fitting for them to have some distinctive attacks. And surprisingly, most of them are:
- Whammo/Greater Yammo has a newly added energy wave
- Belcher/Greater Groak has been given the ability to perform a burrowing attack three times in a row if doesn't swallow something after burrowing. (At first, I thought this change wouldn't be enough, as it wouldn't be very noticeable. But after playing for a while, I found it to be quite noticeable.)
- Onyx/Greater Colossapphire has an attack where it jumps into the air and spits significantly more ice projectiles
- Prizefighter Bullrog/Greater Bullrog can block and counterattack
- Tusker/Greater Bonejaw has a roar that pushes the player away and activates traps

Only the Gourdo Twins and Prima Floracrane are identical to the imbued versions of gourdo and floracrane.

In my opinion, since the Gourdo Twins, as the name suggests, are twins, two opponents at once, there should be some visible cooperation between them. They should perform some kind of joint attack.
Additionally, when one Gourdo die, the other should become enraged and speed up its attacks.

Prima Floracrane, on the other hand, could shoot acid into the air, which would fall with a delay.

Hunter's Path:

There's currently a cap of 500 Heart Shards that can be spent on talents in Wellspring. Most talents don't have a maximum cap. It's certainly good that such a cap exists. However, I think it could work a bit differently.
Instead of a cap on spent Heart Shards, there should be a cap on level up talents rank.
For example:

Spoiler

You have two theoretically upgradeable talents. Upgrading the first always costs 1 heart shard, while upgrading the second always costs 2 heart shards. The maximum cap of heart shards you can spend is 20. So, for example, you could upgrade the first talent to rank 10 and the second to rank 5. Then, the total number of upgraded ranks is 15. That's roughly how it works in the current system.

In my proposal, it would look like this:

Spoiler

You also theoretically have two skills that can be upgraded. Their costs are the same as in the first example. The only difference is that the cap is not the number of spent heart shards, but the level uped ranks. This means you could spend 18 heart shards on the second skill, increasing it to rank 9. However, if you wanted to spend the remaining heart shards on the first skill, you could only upgrade it to rank 1, as you would then reach a cap of 10 level up ranks.

This is how it works in my system. I hope I've described it clearly.
Continuing, if instead of a cap on spent Heart Shards, there was a cap on increased ranks, it could be a maximum of 80.
Additionally, the player wouldn't have the aforementioned cap immediately. The base cap on increased ranks would be 10, and then each new Heart Stone would increase it by 10.

It would also be useful if there was some kind of counter showing the max cap of spendable shards/upgraded ranks.

Discerning Hunter is currently twice as expensive as Burning Crystal, which I think is stupid. The additional power from crystals is a much more powerful talent than the ability to reroll powers. Burning Crystal should cost 4 shards, and Discerning Hunter 2. Alternatively, make both talents cost 3 shards.

Spoiler

Good Will is a very powerful talent, so why not change it up a bit? Instead of guaranteeing an additional free power upgrade, Good Will could increase the chance of receiving an additional free upgrade. Each skill upgrade would increase this chance by 5%.

A minor visual change, but the wellspring lever could move up when the player opens the talent interface and down when he leave it.

Other Changes:
Regular and imbued bulbugs now jump forward when attacking.

Spoiler

However, I think it would be better if only the imbued bulbug had this ability, and the regular bulbug worked as before.
This would, above all, better distinguish imbued bulbug from regular version in terms of this attack.
Alternatively, the regular bulbug could also jump forward, but a much shorter distance than the imbued version.

A stone that must be destroyed before the time runs out to obtain a corestone could have more than two graphics. 
Since it only has two graphics, which aren't very different from each other, when you break it, you barely feel like you're destroying it.

Since this update includes changes related to character customization, why not add the ability to save customized character appearances as presets?
That would make it easy to switch between one customized character appearance and another.

Thorned Quagmire, Retching Mire, and Stilted Marsh feature crops grown from seeds obtained from Blisterbane Bog and Molded Grave in their locations designs.

Spoiler

This looks great, of course, and it's a good idea for hunts to have visible flora which player collects.
Hopefully, the other biomes will also receive a mini hunt with visible flora growing from seeds obtained from these biomes.

Since mini bosses now have their own unique icons displayed on maps and in the hunt summary, during Super Frenzy 3-5, where you fight two mini bosses at once, both mini boss icons should be displayed on the maps and in the summary instead of just one.

Spoiler

 

Due to the addition of numerous mini hunts, these have their own unique location names. 
The main hunts, on the other hand, simply have the "Boss Rot Lair" postscript.
It's a shame they have the same postscipt. They also deserve a unique location name.
It could look something like this:

Spoiler

 

Currently, the maximum number of mini hunts per biome is three. However, I hope this number will be increased to four in the future. Then, when selecting the main hunt, the boss would be in the middle and the mini bosses would be on the sides, which would look simply awesome.

And the last thing in this post:

Spoiler

When mini bosses plushies? 

Edited August 21, 2025 by Kacpert25

[Anxiattack]

Awesome ideas all around! You really cooked with these ideas/suggestions!