Why do the patches nerf things in a single player game?

A) it’s completely untrue that just because a game is not multiplayer doesn’t mean it couldn't or shouldn’t get balance tweaks to make the overall experience better to get it closer to the fabled “developer intent”. Everytime you all cry foul about censorship getting in the way of the developer’s vision should feel the exact same way when a developer, through their own will and not because they were forced, changed stuff around to fix things in accordance to their own vision. You demanding the developer not change something is as much a case of censorship as when Nintendo forced Konami to remove the crosses from Super Castlevania IV in order to be able to launch the game in the west.

B) Bloodstained Ritual of the Night isn’t even strictly single player only. There will be multiplayer modes in the future and proper balancing of items, weapons and armor are needed for it to work. And even if it was just a single player game (which it isn’t) it still doesn’t mean it couldn’t get further balance tweaks.

I’m growing tired of this community’s endless whining and crying foul over the smallest of things. There ARE legitimate concerns to complain about (almost everything surrounding the Switch version, for example), but this ain’t it, Chief.

This ain’t it.

In my opinion (which counts for something, because I am part of a development team) if a game doesn't match the developers' vision, it isn't ready for release. Patches are for fixing problems. Not for the fine tuning of things that should have been done during Alpha and Beta.


Correct on the first part, but questionable at best on the second. If it doesn't break the game, it doesn't need fixed. For the multiplayer, it's not even out yet, so how do we know it unbalances things? For the singleplayer? The game has been selling well, received glowing reviews, had plenty of people enjoying it without tweaking. There is a vocal group that wants the game to be harder, but they ignore two important points.

First, the tools to make the game harder are already in their hands.

Secondly...the game's an RPG. Unless you're on Nightmare, being overlevelled is going to count for a lot more than loadout.


Right, people having the game they were already enjoying changed in a way that doesn't improve their experience are the ones whining, and not the people demanding things change because they "want a challenge", but can't exhibit the self control to use the options for making the game more challenging that currently exist. If your game experience is ruined because you are physio/psychologically unable to keep yourself from using certain items, that's a "you" problem, not a game problem. If you can make the choice not to play games on Easy, you can make the choice not to overlevel and optimise your equipment. You're certainly going to have to learn that self-control eventually. The game isn't meant, and indeed should not be, balanced to challenge the best players in the world.


Those are valid concerns, yes, but some people would tell you that those are blown way out of proportion too.

In the end, anything that affects someone's experience is a valid concern. It doens't matter if its two points of damage on a midgame weapon, or 30fps vs. 60fps. People want an enjoyable experience.

EDIT: There was a point I wanted to make that got lost in the breakdown. Feedback forums exist for a reason. How are people supposed to make their opinion known, if they don't say anything? Not speaking up tells the development team that everything is fine. "All clear" is the default state. To an extent, receiving praise is the default state. People who enjoy things will overlook flaws that didn't matter to them. It's often when people complain that they're being the most honest (that's why I always look for negative reviews first on any Steam game I'm interested in). Even if complaints ultimately get ignored, it's important to developers to get negative feedback, because it tells them more about what needs polished or fixed than just hearing "I love this game! Thank you so much!", no matter how nice (and an ego boost) the latter is to hear.

Maybe they prepare for some pseudo mmo multiplayer like Diablo 2 where a certain number of people can meet up in a game and coop, pvp, or trade together.

The "problem" you think they're aiming for/the one you think they're concerned about (and in perhaps OP's case as well) isn't what is being addressed here. I've talked about this in one of the other threads about this topic (which I may be merging this one into one of those soon), but the distinction is about being overpowered in the normal progression of the game, not being overpowered as a result of grinding or late game as per usual in all these games. I think being ridiculously strong is the result they want for us and what we all expected and will not change, that's just the nature of these games and a lot of what makes them fun is getting there. Already being there in the first 20% of the game, however, is not as fun and more taking away from the experience of wanting to get the things that are supposed to be powerful, and experiment with what is new.

For the incredible majority of players, once you had, again in the most obvious case, Welcome Company and True Arrow, which were most often acquired by complete accident in the first 20% of the game - your incentive to experiment, grind or look for mid game (let alone end-game) options was incredibly diminished. The player needn't even look for wiki info or insight on if what they had already was the best, the person already knew it. You can be at a level of power early in the game that feels like it would be much more appropriate near its end - when it is common in Igavania games to ignore the level design considerations once you have the powerful abilities that allow you to skip them. Some of the early RotN shards near base level, upgraded to level 3-4 if maybe a little more or less, gave me a feeling I didn't enjoy where I was running straight though my normal progression, not fazed by enemy placement that was supposed to be something to think about, and commonly not looking twice at mid or late game abilities.

Once again, think about Symphony of the Night - a notoriously broken game. Even so, nothing in the normal castle/first half of the game that can be acquired through normal/non-glitch means will easily carry you through the inverted castle unless you're a quite experienced/trained player (and hit things a whole bunch of times). In a game with upgradeable souls/shards, it can and should be completely fine for early abilities to be near equal standing to late game ones after said upgrades, but most likely not be *better* than them, especially in cases where they can be upgraded easily or perhaps not even need upgrades to suit purposes that trivialize the game/other options much earlier than you should be at an overpowered state.

For the player who has beaten the game, I don't think this will mean as much or perhaps anything at all - the power of the shard adjustments are from what I understand aimed at their early power to better steer the curve of progression so more players can see and experience more content, and think more to achieve that rewarding level of power that I am sure is unchanged. I am aware that one exception to this seems to be the Crissaegrim style sword - I imagine they had their reasons for that, perhaps to give more incentive to make the weapons that are harder to craft.

A counter to this point has been a potential slippery slope scenario where they end up normalizing and nerfing everything and we're in a padded room where everything is bad and the game isn't fun anymore, but I think that's an extreme exaggeration. Most very strong things, which are appropriately strong later, are untouched. 

Thanks for the clear and well put reply. I'm quite satisfied with the answer (to my other questions) but the real question is still, what are the devs balancing against? I understand that the welcome company is good, but its got almost no reach. I'm just worried about them normalizing all power levels of all items that just should be different. 

Speedrunners should not be part of the normal balance of the game. They will exploit/use the mathematically best weapons/shards at all times and they will figure out which one that is. There isn't a way to make everything the same nor should there be. I don't think that having 1 or 2 shards from some areas being a little better than others is an issue at all.

I think maybe just upping the crafting requirements could work, considering farming is quite easy in this game but it's already tedious for some. Maybe the balance that seems to be trying to put in place needs to be on a per-mode basis. It doesn't make sense to nerf the low damage end of a shard when everyone abusing it is just going to 9/9 it ASAP, and therefore bypass the changes anyway, and the only person left effected is the casual gamer, in his normal game...

Edit: I just wanted to clarify that its okay for thing to be overpowered at 1/1 shard or have a weapon that's a shitload better than the others, and there is nothing wrong with that. I don't understand why balance is happening anyway.... it makes 0 sense from the single player modes and pvp isn't even out yet, and for the record will have nothing to do play style wise with single player.

i agree that most players are casual

Keeping this in mind don't casuals prefer not to be challenged? Most of them prefer to be overpowered right? 


i'll make a poll here to see how much of the Bloodstained crowd on forums likes feeling OP