I've had a bit of time to play a few sessions, there's lots of variety to discover and tons of fun to be had! I want to offer several balance related suggestions:
- The first match is currently among the biggest obstacles with weaker starting builds being underequipped for dealing with high-end first opponents. I've had a couple of 10 minute starting matches that I ultimately ended up losing. Accelerant elixir wins the first match every time, but honey slime and catalyst elixir users are at a big disadvantage against any slime or growth themed opponents (new sticky elixir is very strong in the first match). While I think that all 3 have room for strong late-game builds, I recommend giving honey and catalyst starts stronger allure elixirs to compensate for the unreliable nature of their trigger mechanism. A weaker starting opponent could help ease new players into the game, and get players to the fun of build customization faster.
- Overflow related issues are completely fixed, great work! Some of the related strategies can feel slightly underpowered now and countermeasures like corruption and golden idols are very strong. Compression feels even stronger, and is currently an auto include for all builds, perhaps it should trigger on combination instead? With the cooking time changes, combining spirals, and negation chances, all overflow builds now have a place without being too dominant.
- I really like the coins and gems. However, they allow for some incredibly high allure generation, with most of my builds that defeat 10 or more witches all losing to a gem user. They may not need too much direct tuning, since most can be countered if overflow methods become stronger, or if there will be ways to prematurely cook the opponent's brew. I have also never seen tourmaline gems offered, are they in the player's pool? The gold growth effect they offer would be a handy counter to gem-based strategies.
- Opponents that use infinitely stacking effects like diamonds, rubies, charm elixirs, and sultry injections offer just one chance to win before the power scaling becomes too much to handle. However, this is not as big of an issue with virile elixirs and prophesy elixirs since they fill up the cauldron. A similar downside would help balance other stacking-allure ingredients, if they increase in size proportional to their added power or clog up your cauldron with useless steam clouds.
- Injections are an awesome addition, I really like how they work and the different new strategies they open up. Jams are also interesting, but I feel like jelly and strawberry could benefit from being single use with a reset to inventory after casting (like citrine gems).
- The new upgrade system is really cool, it feels like there's a good range of options. "Persistence" may be too strong of an offering and dissuades the purchase of eternal injections which require an extra step. "Consolidate" feels a bit awkward, but it does make sense as a way to shrink down ingredients if needed. Perhaps there could be an effect that exchanges the power of a sacrificed ingredient to those offered in the shop as a way to allow players to switch builds in late game?
- There are lots of situational counter effects that clog up your inventory when you don't need them. Picking what to use and when is a big part of the game, so a "side-pack" which you can add to your inventory if needed could add a layer of strategy and another direction for upgrades. For example a virile elixir user could keep a situational emerald gem to punish slime users, or a corruption elixir to prevent overflow. Tough opponents could also pull out new ingredients to adjust to your strategy.
The game is already lots of fun to play, so these suggestions are certainly not meant to be critical of the experience I've had, just a few ideas for how it could be rebalanced a bit! You have an excellent sense of gameplay design, and there are many other ways to improve the overall flow.