Thanks for the feedback! Sounds like tanky builds might be a bit too forgiving right now, i'll do some balancing changes
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Life steal has similar issues too. There's also the standard issue with knockback in these kinds of games. The lack of any enemy resistance/diminishing returns, means it's way too easy to get enough knockback that enemies cannot touch you anymore. Ranged attacks are too few and far between to worry about with the current levels of sustain. Meaning you can just Stand Still and Kill way too realiably.
Edit: Lategame with 6x Wands I'm getting so much screen shake it's triggering simulation sickness. It was due to having Pierce + Bounce. The screen shake from my projectiles bouncing off the edge of the map.
thanks for your feedback, it will help for the game balancing!
For now I try to avoid diminishing returns by design to make sure each feature and stat is super easy to understand because I dislike when roguelike gets too opaque, I prefer that the player fully and easily undestand each of its choices, but yeah that involves a good balance to find!
In future updates, Life Steal will become harder to get, Knockback will be capped at lower maximum applied values.
Regarding the overall difficulty, the full version has 3 extra level of difficulties, and based on some feedbacks i have from beta testers, the balance between the 5 difficulty modes seem to be close to what i'm aiming for (minus some issues like you pointed out, and of course some balancing required on specific builds and items)
There is already an option to disable screenshakes ;)
Edit: Would you be interested to join the beta-test of the full game? If so please join the Discord and ping me in DM ;)
I did notice that you could turn off screen shake entirely. But admittedly a lot of the visceral feel of the combat goes away when you fully disable the screen shake. But when you have too many Leeroy/knockback projectiles/bouncing projectiles. It just reaches the point where simulation sickness sets in. Wish there was something like an intensity setting, or a way for it to cap out at how often a screen shake can get triggered.
I agree on the opaque thing. But I was more thinking something akin to how CC Diminishing Returns works in WoW. Where 1st hit = full value, 2nd hit within 10s = half value, 3rd hit = 1/4 value. Then 10s of immunity before it resets. That way you still get knockback when you pick knockback. But you can't just perma nail enemies against the wall.
Edit: Also there's a wording issue (or a bug) with how multiple pentagrams work. If you have adept pentagram and the item pentagram the wording is "when you stand inside a pentagram" But the item one gives the 20% damage ONLY and the adept one gives the adept bonuses ONLY. The wording would mean that both pentagrams should give adept bonus AND 20% damage bonus.
Edit2: I'd suggest reformatting Grimorius tooltip so that the -10% armor is above the "on level up"portion. The indentation difference between the +1% speed and -10% armor is small enough that I read it as losing 10% armor on every level up.
Thanks a lot for the interesting insights!
I nerfed HP, Lifesteal and Knockback using various techniques in the last update, along with many other changes.
Just tested Pentagram/Adept and it works as expected: the 2 effects stack correctly as the wording implied
I reformatted Grimorius tooltip as you suggested ;)
That's weird. Cause in my adept run I only ever got both effects once, and that was the single wave where by chance the two pentagrams overlapped. Every other wave, when I stepped into one pentagram I didn't get -CD. But when I stepped in the other, I did. Same when I had the Cheater item and two Pentagrams. I didn't get +40%, I got +20% so only the effect of one.