Are you with or against the nerf?

That's not how it works in this game. As I said in another thread, every shard is actually viable depending on your playstyle. For example I found Welcome Company to be completely useless for me in my NG Hard playthrough, because I wanted to one shot everything and that shard isn't focused on burst damage. Yet here we have a lot of people claiming that that shard is OP and should be nerfed. You can't say that there are only a couple of useful shards when in reality every shard deals tons of damage and you just have to choose the ones you prefer. Stop saying things like "nerfing shards will force users to change their playstyle!" because unless you're nerfing to the point of those shards being completely useless, which is counter-productive, the players aren't going to completely change the way they're playing the game if they feel comfortable enough with it. Or what, are you saying we have to nerf to the ground every OP build out there until there are none of them and the game transforms into a completely boring mess of no fun allowed builds?

I'd have to disagree with you there. The difference is merely semantic. "Balance" presumes some objective level of difficulty that the game should be at, and that anything above or below that point is "out of balance". Difficulty simply refers to how much effort is required to progress through the game is in its current state. There's no confusion. If changes are made only to make the player less powerful, then this has indeed made the game more difficult. Making strong shards weaker doesn't make other shards suddenly better. They remain just as difficult to use - in that they retain the same amount of difficulty to make progress when using them. There are not "more viable strategies", simply fewer alternatives to a less desirable progression curve.

As to the second point - lower difficulties must exist to be switched to.

The only argument I can't really agree to is the "single-player game" one.

Multiplayer is an intended feature of B:RotN. Has been since the Kickstarter campaign. It's just not finished yet. However, multiple multiplayer modes are coming. The stretch goals included a co-op mode, online challenge mode, and asynchronous online multiplayer. At least one of those is likely to be competitive. The existence of a built-in speedrun mode also implies that competitive speedrunning is being treated as an intended part of the game's model - thought the potential to invalidate old runs means that one can be counted both for and against.

The thing is, I'm not convinced that the game is unbalanced by these items and shards. People have asserted it, but I haven't seen any real evidence. What I have seen is a lot of Twitch playthroughs, and my own experience. Some people struggle until they use Welcome Company and the like. Some people struggle even with those supposedly overpowered options. Some people progress through the game just fine without them. Do I have hard numbers to back up my experience? No...but what I have seen suggests to me what my common sense agrees with. Different people have different skill levels. The game is balanced around the classic Igavania games, not modern "hardcore" Metroidvanias full of precision sections and high skill walls like Hollow Knight and others. So maybe the game is easy...or maybe a lot of veteran players are just good at the genre by now.

You're making this about something it isn't here with a very exaggerated slippery slope argument (and you're not the only one), where in truth we're probably looking at a handful of shards that are still powerful doing slightly less damage. The extremely powerful late game stuff (which make this game like SotN, which gradius is talking about), aren't being touched. The game's design intention is clearly to have the player be very strong the longer they play it, as always, but not immediately strong during the first couple of hours to where the options to explore and upgrade otherwise are diminished. That's contrary to the *fun* a lot of people want out of these games. I wanted to like other things, myself, but Welcome Company was (and still is, even 50 hours in) so good that I just ignore everything else. That's the point to focus on - what is VERY good right now should and most likely will remain good, and it just being "good" will allow other things some time for experimentation by the average/most players. Some of the strongest things in the game being also the earliest/most mundane and obvious finds is not particularly good.

I'm the average player, I don't level up everything and I play through the Igavania games roughly 1.5x usually. I never quite get through an entire NG+ or do the harder difficulties (I just don't like grinding), but I probably will this time around. The majority experience with the game is to use the most obviously powerful things, or what other people tell them are good, beat it once and leave/move on. This is the playthrough that you have to consider as the "main" one, it's what's reviewed, what's remembered and what everyone "thinks" your game is. People that hang around to grind everything to grade 9/rank 9 might find other favorites or quirks to things they like as much or more, but that's a definite minority of people (and that itself only happens late game because materials for 9th ranks are generally later game). There's nothing I can think of in SotN (or any of the other games, right off) that you get early-mid game and continue to use through late game - and in the games that had it later, all the way to your harder difficulty NG+s. Nothing in SotN's normal castle is very useful in inverted - if something does work out that way, it's probably a glitch or obvious oversight. Iron Shield + Shield Rod is probably about the limit of what was appropriate for SotN as an earlier game offense. You're not getting your hands on anything better unless you cheat the system.

My honest response that I actually remember when I read the description for Welcome Company's rank upgrade buff: "more paintings? Why - there's already 5? What would that even look like?" Also, I have to say that Chaser Arrow taking a hit surprises me, but that was in the context of being very disappointed with it because True Arrow completely invalidates it. Why does tracking matter when you can aim a spread anywhere you want that moves faster, and does more damage close and far? I didn't even touch True Arrow in my playthrough though because I remembered how silly it was in the beta. Had I known I'd end up leaning on WC through my entire game, I'd probably have kept myself from using it as well. The temptation to just cheese through all the level design (and bosses) was too strong, and as a result I ended up not seeing whatever work they did on most of the game's conjure shards. If I'd used True Arrow, it'd be the same for the directional shards. That is not great, and what I'm meaning is, that was a large majority of people.

That some people are bored and lazy to play the game with variety, doesn't mean we should endure good things getting shafted! I am soon to finish hard and i have extensively used everything! From Vepar Tentacle, to flying water leapers (which are surprisingly, pretty good, effective and dangerous)! I don't like some people with issues (guilt ridden, salty), dictating how others should play the game and even, "demanding" nerfs (steam was bloated by such entitled eyesores). This game is to have fun. If some people can't have fun, unless asking for destroying the means that beget fun to other people, then we have a problem.

This is actually pretty irritating, to say the least. And even though people claim no resources/priorities are encumbered for that "deviation", i also don't like neither the timing, nor the nature, or those DEGRADES and not, updates. If some people can't lay down a MEDIOCRE skill, that they even erroneously perceived as "overpowered", they have no right to ruin other people's scedule and builds. This sucks big time.

Even though i used them to a minimum and far late into the story myself, i actually care about everybody else, who incorporates them in their regular playstyle. Not using, or not wanting to use something as is, doesn't mean we should snatch it away from those who do.

Ruinous Rood and Shuriken still unaffected. My broke Miriam is still broke.

But ARE YOU KIDDING ME with Bunnymorphosis!? Bunny needs more skills! more power! at least make it safer to land the bunny lightning kick! Everytime we are not transformed into the bunny Johannes should ask "Now where did that bunny go?"

The ruined english countryside is in sore need of bunny justice.

I'd just like to float the idea that maybe the reason people are so limited in which shards they use and often stick with a few good options they find early on isn't that these shards are inherently more viable. Maybe it's because those shards are obtained early on. People find something that works for them, stick with it, and build their play style for it. For me, I ended up using Summon Ghost for a long time...and I honestly never really replaced it, just got to the point where I was mainly using my Directional shard for damage and didn't touch it any more, so I switched to Summon Chair for the lols. Shard descriptions don't give much information, and there's no easy numbers shown to compare like with weapon attack value. Who wants to spend a ton of time testing every single shard to see if it works when they've already got one that they can use just fine?

I'm not entirely for the nerfing. In fact, there's some cool weapons that look cool, but are just weak compared to other weapons and could use a little buff.
I noticed there's a lot of negative feedback on the Kickstarter regarding the nerfing. Someone had an interesting idea in one of the comments,