Balance Update #1 - Patch Notes

Yeah so related, let me ask - the patch we've been talking about is out now, how is it actually affecting your games/the way you play? I would wager not as profoundly as you imagined, just a bit for the new player

Re: familiars, our main expectation (or worry) going into this game was that they wouldn't be useful at all - I'm glad that turned out to not be the case.

Was curious how patches and DLC were coming along last night, so eventually found this thread on my google spree.

Personally, I'm not a fan of the nerfs. And sure, I saw some people complaining about Welcome Company or other early game shards, but I was ultimately content in letting them slide because there was literally no point in the game that said you had to use them, else you fail. As such, it boiled down more to personal choice of the player where oftentimes I'd say some were also being grossly over-dramatic about efficacy or imbalance.

That said, with tweaks largely being numbers based, I'm further inclined to assert that isn't why so many shards aren't used. Sometimes MP costs are too high. Sometimes the way the skill attacks is impractical. Maybe it doesn't heal enough in the moment. Maybe it's too much like another skill, only having a graphical and detrimental elemental difference. Perhaps upgrades are too late-game. Just pointing at all the popular shards and knocking them down a few pegs does nothing to address this reality. Some skills more than likely need drastic revamps, or at least token changes beyond adding a few points of damage here and there. I suspect this sort of attention would be the preferred approach enhancing versatility, but it is also the more difficult path. It should come as no surprise that gamers are jaded about devs taking the easier path when it comes to fixing problems, as very rarely does it translate to the best solutions. Whether the game is solo or multiplayer doesn't matter in this equation.

Weapons are similar in shards this way, but with their own unique issues. Techniques being underwhelming is a problem I think most would agree on. Some would even want a shortcut system for when you master an ability, you can set it for quick use. This would greatly help in the responsiveness, or lack thereof, department while further helping the viability of certain weapon classes. I honestly feel bad for anyone trying to play this exclusively on a keyboard, as an example. Otherwise, I'd say it's true that certain weapon types are under-represented and could use more variants and techs through progression, like whips. Aside from RV, I personally took to great swords because I couldn't stand the narrow attack frames of swords, being limited by ammo with guns, martial weapons generally putting you at greater risk of being hit due to range and what felt like a lacking payoff, and so on. GS simply "won" for me because attacks from below were nowhere near as common as attacks from above, further maintaining that benefit when ducking to make yourself a smaller target. The aforementioned flaws are all something that could and arguably should be looked into, but I would suspect those wary of the nerf mentality would instead worry that GS would just get beaten down with lesser damage or even changes to their normal attack arc. The former still wouldn't convert me to most other weapons, while the latter would just make angry that they destroyed some flavor, further if they doubled down on both. In the end, I think I'd more vastly prefer unique effects getting baked into weapons with an eventual upgrade path for early/mid-game stuff so you can still use them endgame if you like what they do.

When it comes to overall game difficulty, I'm just going to stick to waiting and see what the DLC difficulties and RL mode do. I'm not a fan of LV1 challenges like Nightmare, personally, so while I did that mode, I can't say it added much to the experience. I'm also inclined to call general difficulty inconsistent, with bosses like Vepar, Zangetsu 1, and Bloodless being a tad too overtuned while not being so much about pattern recognition as something like Order of Ecclesia was as a comparable "hard" 'Vania experience. Other bosses had issues like Valefor's stupid HP wall (And no amount of saying "SPEND ALL YOU HAVE BEFORE YOU FIGHT HIM!" is intuitive game design) or the casino chip lag, but for the most part, they probably could've used slight difficulty bumps upward to further match player growth, with Bael as a standout of just leaving the player of feeling, "That's it...?"

There's something that need to look out: Blood Steal costs 80 MP, while the maximum default MP capacity (without taking MP max up item once) is 78. Not some real issue in regular game but it DOES turn into an issue if player choose to not grab any max up item under clean new game - level one cap.

Not necessary, there are items that reduce mp cost.

How it is going with the zangetsu playable character development for ps4?

sorry but the dev is more interested in nerfing the game

savingprincess The changes more encourage the experimentation than halt it. You scarcely have a reason to take Welcome Company off after you get it, and acquiring/upgrading it is not a difficult thing. Even scrolling through the red shards a couple days ago, I found myself stuck thinking "why would I ever use these other ones?" I used other ones regardless, all the while thinking "this looks neat, but I'm purposefully limiting myself to use anything else".

I've talked about all of this in more detail ad nauseum in one of these many discussions about the nerfs so I won't get too far into it again. Everyone should play RotN post-patch and report back if it actually changes or hinders how they play the game in any way - I would expect not, it's just for someone's first time through and not leaning on certain ones as a crutch and ignoring the design of 90% of them. These things are still strong when you upgrade them. Rhava Velar (the multi-hit Crissaegrim weapon that was "nerfed") does 132 per hit at high level rather than 137.

Here was one of my more in-depth posts about the whole thing
bloodstained.forums.net/post/71503

Why make the change: for the person playing the game for the first time (not us) who is discovering and should want to try new things. "If the variables and parameters keep changing" isn't the case - we're looking at what as far as we know is a one-time very minor adjustment for the purpose mentioned.

Because players on a new playthrough hopefully won't find that rank 1 grade 1 of certain powerful shards are objectively the best thing ever compared to every other choice under the sun.

People call these changes insignificant, because if you grind the shard into uber godhood and get all the passive damage buffs possible and extremely augment your DPS... well, surprise surprise, the couple points of damage you lost really mean nothing. At that point, you're simply going to will down a boss by doing literally anything.

These are changes oriented at players seeking challenge, and weighing the basic variety of shards. Thereby, the changes are also to reward variety; why should my rank 5 grade 5 of certain shards feel objectively flat out worse than rank 1 grade 1 Riga Dohin, which can be obtained at nearly the same time? That is what we'd call "being punished for experimenting", and while it can be stomached because exploring variety is typically unintended as a whole, I mean, it makes no sense to complain when variety is actually for once catered to.

You've been watching this forum, you've seen my posts, but have you read them? Or have I fallen into the vague category of "whacko who support the nerfs and is mean"? Not to be presumptuous, but to see you so bluntly claim these changes purposeless and insignificant, using such a feeble argument, inclines me to believe you hadn't read anything I wrote quite closely. Not that I blame you, but...!

So, some of the playerbase will see the nerfs, and I don't doubt appreciate them for removing the temptation to use objectively better provided base-level shards. Because, here's the thing: if they're god-tier at BASE, then that almost communicates "you should be ONLY using this, and you're being KINDA DUMB if you're NOT using this", it feels like the intention is that players ONLY use THIS handful of shards, because it takes no work to grind them into being cheese strats. Anything else is sub-optimal at the basic performance level, and while this can be ignored too, it's psychologically much harder to pass up than say, thirty minutes of grinding a shard as hard as possible so it becomes overgod tier and unrivaled in every respect, aside from certain other overleveled shards.

Everyone who loves everything being max power can still pretty much get the same results out of these shards. At the ground level- or, the early game level- the shards will have just enough scaling peeled back to not make them blow everything else out of the water.

Personally, I find a lot of complaints about the nerfs short-sighted and selfish. I want to know how many of these people appreciate the prospective challenge at the early-game or mid-game tier, or if they know of the experience I or others talk about when they complain that "literally no one will notice these changes" or when they filter out statements regarding nuance and the early-game experience.

These changes are really, really not substantial enough to warrant complaint, even if they have a palpable effect on a part of the game. They're not egregious, dire, or utterly game-changing for those who love power. They're a slight nudge for people progressing through the game, so they engage in variety and don't cling ultra-tight to all of the same options.

And, again, before this may come up, it's easier to simply make those options less stupidly powerful than it is to buff everything and rebalance every enemy. You can already buff shards yourself for basically this reason. If you want less challenge, if you want more power, go for it. It's allowed, you can already do it.