Posted March 08, 2021 by XenonZed
Hey! This one's just another smallish update mostly focused on balance changes and general polish, but there's some other stuff I wanted to discuss in this post first.
First up is something I think is really cool: at the time of writing this, The Grab Bag has just reached 500 downloads! Thanks a bunch to everyone who's downloaded my mod. I never expected it to grow this much. I don't have any big new content to celebrate with like I did at 200 downloads, but the support is appreciated!
Next I'd like to talk about the update itself. What I'm most interested to discuss is the changes I've made to Jester's Contraband & Shanks level-up set. While I was really proud of this set from a design perspective, I couldn't help but find it a bit on the weak side when actually playing with it. While I haven't changed the base cards in the set, I've redesigned their upgrades to give the set a substantial buff.
Contraband+ will now give the player 2 unupgraded Shanks when it's used, as opposed to giving the player 1 upgraded Shank. More Shanks means much more solid damage output for the set overall, and a huge indirect buff for Assassinate.
Since Contraband+ no longer gives the player upgraded Shanks, it means that I can make the upgraded form of Shank more interesting as well. Shank+ no longer deals extra damage; instead it removes the card's self-deleting attribute, meaning it can be used more than once. This should introduce some more meaningful decision-making into runs, as upgrading a Shank is now something seriously worth considering.
This does come with a small catch, though. The floor 4 booster pack for this set now consists of 3 Shanks, rather than 2 Shanks and a Contraband. This is just to limit the power of the set, as a ridiculous number of Shanks could be generated otherwise.
I've also done a wording pass to fix some phrasing I wasn't totally happy with, which should make certain items easier to understand. Enjoy!
Full changelog:
This should hopefully be the last update in a little while. I'm hoping to include a bunch of new content in the next one.