Post by Norbert339 in Balance discussion: Items

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that is even stronger reaction than my own.

Maybe I implied too much of a reaction, it’s just a conduct I started doing at some point. Other things I generally avoid like this right now are Lament, the pawns move + gather magic combo, and having more than 2 effective fatigue reduction on a card in the deck (e.g. fatigue rune + pray).

Are there other items which you feel are similarly overpowered?

I feel Ribcage Armor is the closest. So far I only avoid it when playing Renevant.

Next strongest would Piggy Bank and Paradoxical Figure, I guess. But those aren’t the same category.

But the idea of sorting draw pile is interesting. What benefits / synergies do you see? Initiative effect on cards already does draw pile sorting, but adding secondary sorting mechanism currently feels even more niche than hand sorting.

Well, it could reverse initiative effects. Right now I can’t think of a use case, either. But there could be some card(s) with negative initiative where this would be beneficial. A bit like heavy blow, but with initiative instead of weight.

Question is whether it should synergize with Snowflake

I’d be like a changed pancake + hidden lever combo. Except you need a source of freezing (and maybe different item rarity). If there shouldn’t be two of these combos, pancake could be changed differently. For example instead of a counter, Pancake could add (persist 1) to a most upgraded card in the draw pile on start stage.

AlSoKnown5 days ago

Maybe I implied too much of a reaction,

Not at all, “very good player stops using item because it makes game too easy” is an excellent indicator of imbalance, so this feedback is exactly what I want.

Lament

This is outright bug, I forgot to add “exhausts” and effect condition. Funny thing, I played Lament a few times since then, but somehow failed to notice that actual card is different from the one I have in my mind. Fixed by adding both exhaust and “have enough piety” condition.

Now the impact of Lament is rather similar to Inquisitor Seal, as both allow to refill the resource once per battle.

pawns move + gather magic

Pawn’s Move is a tricky card. It is supposedly intended to facilitate hand manipulation, but I myself noted that I use it mostly for creative exploitation of infinite persist. In particular, weird “if effects <= 1” condition is added to avoid making too good of a chassis for card construction with Idea.

Another example is Pawn’s Move + Rewind, which completely bypasses fatigue since “return from discard” effect is not affected by it.

Perhaps just using fixed “Persist 5” would be better?

more than 2 effective fatigue reduction … e.g. fatigue rune + pray

That’s still just effective -1? Even though Pray persists, it still increases fatigue normally. Nitpicking aside, I understand the general issue. Maybe nerf Rune of Heariness to Fatigue -1 …

Ribcage Armor … avoid it when playing Renevant

Indeed, this item is custom-made for Revenant, especially on high ascension where you are limited in Lichform upgrades. However, I thought that poison, fear, and recently guilt, pose high enough risk to push this item into “powerful but prone to sudden death” category. How do you usually mitigate those when using Ribcage Armor?

Paradoxical Figure

This one is intentionally “too broken to balance, but fun to use occasionally” item, so the only thing I considered changing is to make it ever more rare in some way.

Burnt Pancake

I significantly reworked this item by changing the counter increase condition to “played card had zero effects”, same as Large Basket. This makes an item potentially even more powerful, but adds significant requirement / downside (and even some danger of forced infinite self-stalling), so now both picking and using it hopefully require some thought.

Norbert3393 days ago (3 edits)

“very good player stops using item because it makes game too easy” is an excellent indicator of imbalance

Well, for these conducts, there can also be other reasons like replayability, perceived fun, convenience and inching towards more difficulty. So, it’s not necessarily just because it feels too easy. But it’s still a good indicator I guess.

weird “if effects <= 1” condition is added to avoid making too good of a chassis for card construction with Idea.

This makes sense, but also breaks Pawn’s Move as soon as you have an item with a trigger “on card playing” or “on any trigger”.

Perhaps just using fixed “Persist 5” would be better?

Yes, it’d be less tedious to use pawns move+gather magic, and for mage it’s also a powerful and common combo, so this nerf should be fine.

You could also add “cards played -1” and “weight -1” to make it not combo, but more viable to pick up for hand manipulation. Pause and other persistent cards already do these combos enough.

more than 2 effective fatigue reduction … e.g. fatigue rune + pray

That’s still just effective -1?

True, that description was misleading. Practically, heartiness+pray would be -2 fatigue times 4 uses plus 3 extra fatigue for playing it more often, so it’s effective fatigue effect is -5, same as Rally with three upgrades.

So with “effective” I don’t mean including the fatigue cost of playing the card, but including what persistence does in normal circumstances. It’s the effective fatigue reduction effect* that’s capped at 2, so Rally+ is too much.

I understand the general issue. Maybe nerf Rune of Heariness to Fatigue -1 …

I just used it a lot when playing priest, and maybe builds that approach infinite fatigue reduction/draw just feel kinda tedious to play in the long run. But I guess in terms of power and frequency, stuff like pray+heartiness is comparable to pawns move+gather magic, so nerfing it should be ok.

How do you usually mitigate those when using Ribcage Armor?

Draining Touch still heals you, so Renevant has usually not much downsides to using Ribcage Armor. I think it mostly prevents “heal” effects and positive vitality from healing, while vampirism and gaining hp as a non-specific resource still works.

reworked this item by changing the counter increase condition to “played card had zero effects”, same as Large Basket

This sounds like an interesting idea. So far I still haven’t confirmed for myself in what cases exactly a card plays zero effects. I guess frozen counts as an effect, as well as “on card playing”/“any trigger” item tiggers, but unmet conditionals like in sigils don’t.

itch.io

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