Version 0.718b

Em0_oticon

Green Slime
I'm really enjoying this patch so far. The only weird thing that stands out to me is that the 2h magic weapons hit for only slightly more damage than the 1h magic weapons.
 
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Em0_oticon

Green Slime
But they have more powerful ranged attack.
Yeah the ranged attack is AoE and that's fine. I'm mostly talking about if you're playing in melee range with a 2h magic weapon. 2h melee hits about twice as hard as a 1h melee weapon at the moment, but the 2h magic weapon only hits 20-30% harder than the 1h magic weapon.
 

Wallabe

Green Slime
Reposting from Steam:

REALLY not a fan of the basic attack nerf. Like, just because we're not actively spellslinging shouldn't invalidate a build.

Plus, it was far from easy mode. You really had to build around it. Plus, compared to spell users, bosses could be ROUGH. Half the boss fights are mainly "don't get hit." Which makes it really tough for melee. I hope you'll reconsider, as you're basically removing a possible build.
 

Own

Moderator
Like, just because we're not actively spellslinging shouldn't invalidate a build.

Mashing the attack button being the strongest build in the game is a pretty embarrassing way for your game to be shown off. It invalidates all the work put into all the actual skills in the game.

Plus, it was far from easy mode. You really had to build around it.

+Crit, +DMG, +AtkSpd, +DMG when attacking, +Fire DMG on attack, +DMG when enemy is on fire... not that complicated. :p

Plus, compared to spell users, bosses could be ROUGH. Half the boss fights are mainly "don't get hit." Which makes it really tough for melee.

All the boss fights were "I don't care about getting hit because my DPS outpaces boss DPS." The only way it was tough is if you never used anything but a wooden sword.
 

Em0_oticon

Green Slime
Reposting from Steam:

REALLY not a fan of the basic attack nerf. Like, just because we're not actively spellslinging shouldn't invalidate a build.

Plus, it was far from easy mode. You really had to build around it. Plus, compared to spell users, bosses could be ROUGH. Half the boss fights are mainly "don't get hit." Which makes it really tough for melee. I hope you'll reconsider, as you're basically removing a possible build.
1h is much stronger than it was last patch. Saying that the basic attack build is removed is absurd. It's still there and it's still strong enough to finish the current content on Hard, though I don't see why you would... the other 1h abilities more than make up for the 30% loss in basic attack damage. Berserker Style is still only barely stronger than Shadow Clone even after the nerf. Considering Berserker makes you take 65% more damage that's insane.
 

CeliriaRose

Green Slime
I still really don't like the new smash skill. I went in game and gave it a try and it still just feels like a magic skill not a strength/two handed skill.
 

Own

Moderator
You can still ignore the ball and smash enemies into other enemies. The ball is just there to make it not useless in 1 on 1 fights. Like boss battles.
 

Blaize

Green Slime
I am inclined to think the new Smash is a bit overpowered. I just finished the Arcade for the first time, before I never even made it to the temple. With Smash it felt fairly easy. Maybe it is just that the EP costs are very low. Really had a blast though!
 

KoBeWi

Jumpkin
^
Yeah, I find Smash very strong too. Smash + Blink combo performs very well in Arcade, but still didn't help me to get past Pumpkin Woods floors :/
Same with pre-nerf Barrier. It doesn't matter if a skill "feels OP" if you are a bad player, so I think it's fine in the end.
 

Blaize

Green Slime
^
Yeah, I find Smash very strong too. Smash + Blink combo performs very well in Arcade, but still didn't help me to get past Pumpkin Woods floors :/
Same with pre-nerf Barrier. It doesn't matter if a skill "feels OP" if you are a bad player, so I think it's fine in the end.

Well what matters most is how powerful the other skills seem by comparison. It seems that I am significantly stronger with high level smash than with high level of any other 2h skill. Maybe it just fits my playstyle, but I don't think it is just that.

EDIT:
Might also be I just got better at this. Just finished the Arcade using Frosty and Chain Lightning, was easier than with Smash.

I think Heroic Slam (although a bit weak/slow below lvl 5) and Whirlslash are fine, but Titan's Throw just seems worse than Smash. It has less range, deals less damage, and not being able to move while summoning your sword back is a problem sometimes. As for Berserk, well I was never able to pull off this skill. Probably just me. I find Smash looks overpowered relative to Titan's Throw mostly.
 
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res7less

Jumpkin
Rod confusion:

The Arcade Mode perk description of Smart Start still says you will be starting with Magician's Rod (which was previously Apprentice's Rod), whereas you really start with Apprentice Staff (which is new). The icon of the perk should also be changed accordingly.
 

Rdy

Green Slime
Hello,

With this latest update rebalancing skills and spells, I took back to Arcade mode to give a whole lot of testing through their relative power levels. First of all, it's very impressive how many options are accessibly viable as Flamethrower previously was. Most shockingly I found Ice Nova to be extremely capable in damage and also very safe despite requiring near-melee ranges. Following are extensive thoughts on everything I gave particular attention to.

Smash!: I agree with previous posters that this skill is now extremely strong. I don't think it particularly warrants a nerf in damage, though. It does require some amount of skill in terms of positioning yourself (an added layer of difficulty when Arcade mode can get very hectic) especially if you want to get the three hits on the orb. After extensively playing magic after I played with Smash!, I now feel like a nerf to its EP cost might be warranted. Fundamentally, the skill hasn't changed much except now it's accessible for fighting bosses and is secretly now the go-to 2H Ranged Attack option.

Ice Spikes: This is a spell I particularly enjoy. On my Normal Story playthrough, I spent a significant amount of time primarily using this spell, and the damage up is a greatly welcome addition. The EP cost is something I don't feel much towards in Story (with the ready accessibility of Spirit Potions) but in Arcade Mode it brings the spell from unusable to decently usable. Its damage still feels a bit on the lower end, but it covers a decent area and brings utility. I'm not sure if it's good enough to make a primary spell out of yet, at least in terms of Arcade Mode.

Ice Nova: Holy shit. I think this thing has serious potential to become as omnipotent as Flamethrower previously was. Its damage is a little low, but starting with this spell and increasing your chance to Freeze means you can walk in the middle of any group of enemies and freeze them all. It's actually hilarious how much I was able to ignore defending because of its 100% Chill and ~60% Freeze, meaning anything walking up to me suddenly couldn't attack me. Freezing Beehives is the most satisfying thing I have done in this game by far. Its damage might taper off too much towards the end of Arcade, and I didn't try it at all in Story, but the utility this spell can bring is absolutely stellar. The best part is, if you only use it for utility, you don't need to worry about damage, making it a one-point wonder even in ATK builds.

Frosty Friend: At first I thought it was a serious nerf for Arcade Mode but dude does some wonders now. For all those words I just wrote about how amazing Ice Nova feels? Frosty Friend competes with it in crowd control capabilities just through sheer autonomous killing power. However, presuming its damage scales off of MATK, probably not usable for ATK builds like Ice Nova would be.

Chain Lightning: The damage increase makes the "Lightning" part of this spell appropriate, but the "Chain" part still feels a little bit underwhelming. Unlike Blaize before me, I struggled to have Chain Lightning take off. Even getting decent drops, I had unique struggles with the spell. I frequently fell on a threshold where the first burst would be just shy of killing an enemy, requiring a rebound that sometimes never came. On the other hand, the rebounds felt ineffective at doing much more than interrupting enemy attacks. Against bosses, its damage still felt a little bit on the lower end - but I never took it further than F06 so I don't know how well its damage scales into Gold Charge for Arcade mode.

Focus: I don't think scaling with EP Regen is really a great idea. In Story mode, with the accessibility of Spirit Potions, I never really felt pressured as far as EP went - if I wanted to sustain my EP for spamming spells, I could make it work. Focus would then be most effective in terms of EP/s recovered, but in practical terms utterly unnecessary. On the other end of the spectrum, in Arcade mode, running out of EP can be a serious bottleneck in clear speed for spells, and EP Regen is difficult to find with the lack of guarantee of the few items that have those stats. In this case, when Focus makes the most sense to grab, it's the least useful? I tried it a few times, but honestly it felt so weak every time that I ended up not using it in favour of basic attacks anyway.

Fireball: This was the latest one I played with. I poked around with it in Story mode, but I was incredibly doubtful of its efficacy due to it reliably only hitting one target. Sure, once in a blue moon enemies will line up their hitboxes just right that you can hit two, but let's be real: It's a single-target spell. When compared to Whirlslash or Flamethrower, it seemed on paper that it would be quite useless outside of bosses in Arcade Mode, and points being precious, it wouldn't be worth spending on...

So I beat Winter with it in one attempt. Mind you, previously, my best record was F09 with Flamethrower. lol?

It still has serious flaws. First of all, surprisingly its power is in the fact that it's so strong that you don't need to charge it up to one-shot most enemies. I consider this a flaw because it's kind of unintuitive compared to everything else where you pretty much always want to do a full charge. This is, in part, of it having no area capabilities. I mean, I guess Gold Charge does something, but why bother when you can just lob out a no-charge Fireball and still one- or two-shot enemies from the other side of the room? Second of all, its hitbox is kind of small, and I felt it occasionally didn't match its new graphics. I'm pretty sure it's one of the spells with "Easy to Use" but ironically for me it's much harder to aim than Earth Spike and Meteor. On big enemies, not a big deal, but smaller enemies near-misses were very infuriating. I especially struggled on the Crystal enemies in the Flying Fortress and the Winter and Autumn Fae on F11.

Finally, it's very EP hungry, largely as a result of requiring at least one Fireball per enemy. If you're also running Frosty Friend, you get a whole 2 Fireballs at Bronze Charge! Wowee! And Focus sucks! Never before have I struggled with S Rank Times in Pumpkin Woods and Flying Fortress than running out of EP two enemies in and running around being able to do anything other than lol 30 damage per basic attack.

This also leads into my final thoughts: There's still a divide in usability between ATK builds and MATK builds. While Basic Attacks got nerfed (for good reason) they're still absurdly good - because you get the benefit of making use of 1h and 2h skills and have good basic attacks. When you run out of EP spamming Heroic Slam, you still output decent damage despite the nerf with basic attacks. When you run out of EP spamming Ice Nova, you stare at your frozen enemies and point at your watch, motioning to them how their doom is coming just as soon as you recover more EP. Ranged attacks on MATK weapons was a great idea, but it's still not an attractive option. You have Focus to maybe cut off a few seconds on a full recovery, but that's still several seconds of waiting for EP.

Earlier I mentioned Smash! doesn't need a nerf in damage, but maybe a nerf in EP cost. The reason I mention this is primarily the disparity between ATK and MATK builds. The gap is a lot closer, but a huge reason why Flamethrower was a reliable spell in Arcade Mode previously is that with good damage and a slight amount of skill, you could negate the drawback of relying on EP for damage by full-clearing rooms with one spellcast and then regenerating to full because of your screen transition. If you got good enough with Flamethrower, you didn't sit in a room full of enemies playing dodgeball while waiting on your EP - something I had to do a lot of on my Fireball clear. Now, if this is intended for MATK builds, I don't think that's inherently bad. Cutting the EP cost of Fireball, for example, would have made Winter infinitely easier than my ~400 damage clear. However, ATK builds kind of get the best of both worlds with good basic attacks AND a few decent EP spending options.
 

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Em0_oticon

Green Slime
For the most part I agree that MATK builds are still not on the level of ATK builds, but they're pretty close while you have energy and the discrepancy seems to be in criticals. Spells can crit now but you cast so few spells that you can go almost an entire fight without seeing one with 16% crit. EP regen is still an issue because you lose too much damage to stack it so it's basically (aside from phaseman boots) a worthless stat.

I definitely think no charge spells should do next to no damage. It's really weird that a quick tap of a skill at level 1 does nearly the same damage as a bronze charge. Also, as a spell caster, levels 1-4 Bronze Charge of a spell all doing nearly the same damage is just weird. It's the same problem with levels 5-9 Silver Charge of any spell as well. Ranks 2-4 and 6-9 don't feel like progression and I usually avoid putting the points in except for levels 1, 5, and 10 because it doesn't make enough of a difference to warrant spending the time between those levels.

Also, spells are extremely weak in the early game because of the spikes in damage they get at levels 5 and 10. This means that even IF spells were on the level of ATK builds later in the game I'd still want to use a 2H without abilities up until flying fortress, or, for in Arcade Mode up until Pumpkin Woods.

The biggest issue right now is that all of the abilities were buffed and enemies are not strong enough to deal with those buffs. The game is honestly way too easy now especially in Arcade.
 
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Wallabe

Green Slime
All the boss fights were "I don't care about getting hit because my DPS outpaces boss DPS." The only way it was tough is if you never used anything but a wooden sword.
There we go. Apparently that's what I've been missing. I'm running Static Touch, which incentivizes not getting hit. So I've gone out of my way trying to dodge attacks. And somehow that yields worse results. So yeah, I can see the problem there.
 

Rdy

Green Slime
There we go. Apparently that's what I've been missing. I'm running Static Touch, which incentivizes not getting hit. So I've gone out of my way trying to dodge attacks. And somehow that yields worse results. So yeah, I can see the problem there.
Note that they removed the getting hit restriction on Static Touch on the latest Frontline.

How do you run the build? My next Arcade runs I want to give Static Touch a try to see how well it progresses.
 

Teddy

Developer
Staff member
Finally back from last week's vacation with some bugfixes to commemorate the occasion!

It's been very interesting to read the experiences and opinions! We'll keep testing, reading (and when the let's plays come after the Stable update, watching) and fine tune as we go along from here.

The biggest issue right now is that all of the abilities were buffed and enemies are not strong enough to deal with those buffs. The game is honestly way too easy now especially in Arcade.

We're going to have a look at certain enemies that are no longer able to do their job as tanks (like the scarecrows getting straight up one shot by most silver charges - not only meteors and the like) and beef them up a little bit!

Other adjustments might very well be needed, but we'll keep our kneejerking in check and wait for more substantial feedback from newbies and less talented players before accidentally tripling the Hydra damage or something. As mentioned earlier, Let's Plays from the next Stable update will probably play a pretty big part in how we move forward!

Something worth mentioning in relation to Arcade Mode is that we decided a while back that it should be made easier along with the coming rework - it was oppressively hard for most people before. But, this might not be needed now since the spells have been improved so much. The idea is that the difficulty ceiling should be raised with Candy Curses in the future!

In other news:

Hotpatch 0.718b
  • Balance: The EP cost of Empower and Fortify has been lowered to 30
  • Balance: Most spells have had their bronze charge made stronger to better reflect the added cost and charge time
  • Bugfix: Getting hit while trying to retrieve a thrown weapon no longer makes the weapon unretrievable
  • Bugfix: The Mimic's hourglass slow no longer condemns clients to an eternity in slowland
  • Bugfix: Dying during a boss battle and then getting revived by a cutscene no longer gives a permanent MaxEP boost
  • Bugfix: Certain miss timings in Robin's arrow game should no longer give negative combo values in multiplayer
  • Bugfix: Freezing an enemy by perfect guarding with the Winter's Guard shield now uses the correct Freeze code
  • Bugfix: You can once again turn off shadow clone, berserk and the cloud as a client!
  • Bugfix: Freezing the Mimic before it wakes up no longer turns him into Briar Rose
  • Bugfix: Fortify now actually works
  • Bugfix: Piercing Dashing into a new zone as client no longer gives a supersonic speed boost
  • Bugfix: (Housing) Placing a candle on a table, moving said table, then canceling a move of only the candle no longer crashes the game
  • Bugfix: Dying in with a summon active no longer blocks resummoing it the next run
  • Bugfix: Clients no longer seem to lose HP from a broken barrier
  • Bugfix: Hovering over Angel's Thirst when it's equipped now shows the correct ATK within the parentheses
  • Bugfix: Holding up pet taming items should now display properly on clients
 

Em0_oticon

Green Slime
We're going to have a look at certain enemies that are no longer able to do their job as tanks (like the scarecrows getting straight up one shot by most silver charges - not only meteors and the like) and beef them up a little bit!
This is actually what I meant when I said enemies aren't strong enough. I don't think any enemies need to have more damage output.
 

Own

Moderator
Reaper, Stasis and Provoke don't proc Insult To Injury. It feels like at least Stasis should.
 
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