It may be built around things scaling with more levels, but I don’t think its balanced around that once you leave player-attainable levels. And I don’t ever recall the heights of talent levels that the game has achieved in 1.6, so while I don’t recall a hardcap it simply did not go higher than high teens IIRC.
Fixing every talent one by one would be a solution, but it would require balance attention be paid to each one individually and there is not always a clear cutoff where a talent achieves “too much” after you get past 6.5. It seems like other solutions might have a better chance of being implemented in terms of their cost in person-hours.
[1.6.0] The game feels entirely overtuned/general feedback
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Re: [1.6.0] The game feels entirely overtuned/general feedba
Played through till Prides. Vor is still hitting with Freeze for well over 1000 damage, through capped resists, ACT, AM shield, etc. I'm done - an Insane made solely of nerf taps and 1HKOs just isn't interesting to me. Cheers, all!
Re: [1.6.0] The game feels entirely overtuned/general feedba
While things have gotten a lot better since 1.6 first came out, I'm with you that the extreme power spikes leading to either getting one-shot as above or monsters that are basically unkillable while the rest of the enemies might as well not exist have made the game more frustrating and less fun than it was in the past.Snarvid wrote:Played through till Prides. Vor is still hitting with Freeze for well over 1000 damage, through capped resists, ACT, AM shield, etc. I'm done - an Insane made solely of nerf taps and 1HKOs just isn't interesting to me. Cheers, all!
Re: [1.6.0] The game feels entirely overtuned/general feedba
I agree. To my mind, it’s not only “less fun and more frustrating,” tho, it’s actually less of a game at all.
Bruce Shelley, of Civ fame, said, “great game-play is a stream of interesting decisions the player must resolve.” Tome 1.6 presents the illusion of being a stream of interesting decisions, but when the RNG has generated a murderbot waiting for you with 10x your health and several skills that do more damage than your whole hp pool while ignoring defenses it matters very little or not at all what your decisions were (depending on whether it’s escapable, avoidable, and if you’re playing on RL). It’s like inventing a deep backstory for your character in Candyland - could be a fun use of time, but if you draw the wrong card you lose no matter what you decided previously.
Bruce Shelley, of Civ fame, said, “great game-play is a stream of interesting decisions the player must resolve.” Tome 1.6 presents the illusion of being a stream of interesting decisions, but when the RNG has generated a murderbot waiting for you with 10x your health and several skills that do more damage than your whole hp pool while ignoring defenses it matters very little or not at all what your decisions were (depending on whether it’s escapable, avoidable, and if you’re playing on RL). It’s like inventing a deep backstory for your character in Candyland - could be a fun use of time, but if you draw the wrong card you lose no matter what you decided previously.
Re: [1.6.0] The game feels entirely overtuned/general feedba
Did you check what the particular card was that caused the 1000+ Freeze damage from Vor? I had thought that the Freeze scaling had been changed to avoid that.
Personally though, I'm not sure that any statements about the Insane difficulty or higher having any tuning makes the slightest bit of sense.
Its always been a clumsy level inflation with a load of talent points thrown on top. There has never been anything 'tuned' about it. The game has also always had enemies that you can beat in your sleep and then dropped something nasty when you fell asleep. This is not new.
People just pretended that getting some great items from drowning NPCs was part of design, when it was just an unintended feature; and continued to work out how to find whatever other cracks were in the gameplay that would let them win the game. (Not that I don't appreciate the skill and patience that is still required to win against the broken scaling.)
Now the meta has shifted and for some people seem to be expecting that everything that they have learnt about how to beat an extremely chaotic game should still work.
Nope, you need to learn the game again. If Insane isn't working for you, maybe you should go back to Nightmare for a bit and learn what does and does not work.
Obviously there are still scaling glitches that need fixing, but those aren't going to disappear without proper reporting of the glitches.
Personally though, I'm not sure that any statements about the Insane difficulty or higher having any tuning makes the slightest bit of sense.
Its always been a clumsy level inflation with a load of talent points thrown on top. There has never been anything 'tuned' about it. The game has also always had enemies that you can beat in your sleep and then dropped something nasty when you fell asleep. This is not new.
People just pretended that getting some great items from drowning NPCs was part of design, when it was just an unintended feature; and continued to work out how to find whatever other cracks were in the gameplay that would let them win the game. (Not that I don't appreciate the skill and patience that is still required to win against the broken scaling.)
Now the meta has shifted and for some people seem to be expecting that everything that they have learnt about how to beat an extremely chaotic game should still work.
Nope, you need to learn the game again. If Insane isn't working for you, maybe you should go back to Nightmare for a bit and learn what does and does not work.
Obviously there are still scaling glitches that need fixing, but those aren't going to disappear without proper reporting of the glitches.
My feedback meter decays into coding. Give me feedback and I make mods.
Re: [1.6.0] The game feels entirely overtuned/general feedba
I agree 100% with the first part of what you say. Insane was never "tuned" from a game design standpoint, rather players figured out how to do things that weren't intended to give themselves the advantages needed to win, and this became part of the canon of the game.HousePet wrote:Did you check what the particular card was that caused the 1000+ Freeze damage from Vor? I had thought that the Freeze scaling had been changed to avoid that.
Personally though, I'm not sure that any statements about the Insane difficulty or higher having any tuning makes the slightest bit of sense.
Its always been a clumsy level inflation with a load of talent points thrown on top. There has never been anything 'tuned' about it. The game has also always had enemies that you can beat in your sleep and then dropped something nasty when you fell asleep. This is not new.
People just pretended that getting some great items from drowning NPCs was part of design, when it was just an unintended feature; and continued to work out how to find whatever other cracks were in the gameplay that would let them win the game. (Not that I don't appreciate the skill and patience that is still required to win against the broken scaling.)
Now the meta has shifted and for some people seem to be expecting that everything that they have learnt about how to beat an extremely chaotic game should still work.
Nope, you need to learn the game again. If Insane isn't working for you, maybe you should go back to Nightmare for a bit and learn what does and does not work.
Obviously there are still scaling glitches that need fixing, but those aren't going to disappear without proper reporting of the glitches.
1.6 takes away a lot of these crutches, like drowning as you mention, getting rid of stunlock, nerfing the most powerful infusions, etc. However, as I understood it, the promise of 1.6 was that a greater level of balance would be introduced so that players would no longer need these crutches, and high difficulty play could support a wider range of options and play styles. This is a good goal, but I think in this regard 1.6 has not yet succeeded. Is this not the case? You seem to be implying that players should look for the next set of crutches/exploits instead.
It's true that in past versions you could also get unlucky with randbosses rolling really tough combinations of classes. Occasionally you would get one-shot, or run into an enemy that you just couldn't kill. But my experience has been these situations have become noticeably more common in 1.6. Sure, I guess you can call this a meta shift if you want, but it's one that I and some others in this thread think makes the game less fun.
Should higher difficulties simply require you to play very well to win, or should you need to break the game to do it? My hope was that 1.6 would push things toward the former.
Some very strong players with huge amounts of experience and deep understanding of the game have weighed in in this thread. I don't think telling them to "git gud" is a good look.
Re: [1.6.0] The game feels entirely overtuned/general feedba
I have no comments about whether the game is anywhere near as balanced as intended, but I'm pretty sure some people are forgetting how much effort they put into working out how to beat the Insane difficulty level before, or are unreasonably expecting it to not require the same amount of effort this time.
They might have been strong players with a deep understanding of the game in 1.5, but this isn't 1.5 anymore. Anyone that tried doing what they used to do in 1.5 is going to get a massive shock, which is likely to make it seem like the whole game is suddenly a lot harder than it used to be.
But really, its just a slightly different game. One in which they don't have much experience in yet. So why should anyone expect to be smashing the unreasonable difficulties yet?
They might have been strong players with a deep understanding of the game in 1.5, but this isn't 1.5 anymore. Anyone that tried doing what they used to do in 1.5 is going to get a massive shock, which is likely to make it seem like the whole game is suddenly a lot harder than it used to be.
But really, its just a slightly different game. One in which they don't have much experience in yet. So why should anyone expect to be smashing the unreasonable difficulties yet?
My feedback meter decays into coding. Give me feedback and I make mods.
Re: [1.6.0] The game feels entirely overtuned/general feedba
He had 14 levels of Freeze, and the spell tooltip listed over 1k of damage before any other synergies were included (like his 14 levels of Essence of Speed, which would let him get a head start on his also 1k+ Fireflash). That *is* the fixed version the devs think is appropriate (down from 3k+). Do you think there’s discoverable, consistent counter play to that (not forgetting his massive investment in Pride of the Orcs)?
With over 100 hours in 1.6, a good number of deathless Insane wins in 1.5, and no Insane wins in 1.6, I’ve learned enough to be confident in my own assessment that there’s not something more I need to learn (I’m not fussed if you’re not confident in it, tho). I don’t feel compelled to spend additional time tossing characters into an RNG wood chipper hoping this time the devs will spit out beatable bosses. It’s true, you can’t win the lottery if you don’t play, but the smart money is not to play at all. 1.6 got those 100 hours of my life, I’m stopping the loss there (though still posting, in hope of change). Reasonable or unreasonable, there it is.
If it were up to me, we’d roll back to 1.59. Feel free to pull drowning. Add race and prodigy changes. And then test to see if the other changes weren’t breaking a thing that many people enjoyed and found playable then. Saying “it was never balanced/meant to be balanced” is a generic defense that permits any possible change to the game with the same equanimity, and several people who found their own balance in 1.59 and previous think there are finer distinctions to be made than that. These are changes for the worse. Given the sunk costs to build 1.6, I’m guessing we are stuck with it, and for me, that’s a shame, because I can’t enjoy it.
With over 100 hours in 1.6, a good number of deathless Insane wins in 1.5, and no Insane wins in 1.6, I’ve learned enough to be confident in my own assessment that there’s not something more I need to learn (I’m not fussed if you’re not confident in it, tho). I don’t feel compelled to spend additional time tossing characters into an RNG wood chipper hoping this time the devs will spit out beatable bosses. It’s true, you can’t win the lottery if you don’t play, but the smart money is not to play at all. 1.6 got those 100 hours of my life, I’m stopping the loss there (though still posting, in hope of change). Reasonable or unreasonable, there it is.
If it were up to me, we’d roll back to 1.59. Feel free to pull drowning. Add race and prodigy changes. And then test to see if the other changes weren’t breaking a thing that many people enjoyed and found playable then. Saying “it was never balanced/meant to be balanced” is a generic defense that permits any possible change to the game with the same equanimity, and several people who found their own balance in 1.59 and previous think there are finer distinctions to be made than that. These are changes for the worse. Given the sunk costs to build 1.6, I’m guessing we are stuck with it, and for me, that’s a shame, because I can’t enjoy it.
Re: [1.6.0] The game feels entirely overtuned/general feedba
What?Personally though, I'm not sure that any statements about the Insane difficulty or higher having any tuning makes the slightest bit of sense.
On insane the useful part of drowning was to get a few levels from an unique/boss so you don't have to mindblast torque etc your way through the couple of the first dungeons. Ofc you can reroll/drown how many times you want but it was basically just a waste of time. If you think you easily got "great items" from drowning on insane on non-GoM starts then you are sadly mistaken. Madness was a different matter but that hasn't really been a point of discussion in this thread.People just pretended that getting some great items from drowning NPCs was part of design
Meta changes are fine but for reasons already discussed in this thread earlier, introducing one million interdependent changes at once doesn't benefit anyone or anything as we've seen from the horrible imbalances that were present in 1.6 and on many parts still are. If a stable version of a game gets so many changes that experienced players will "need to learn the game again" then something prolly is wrong. Judging by the imbalances [laugh at the brawler video here] that got into 1.6 the devs themselves didn't understand what the end result will look like.Nope, you need to learn the game again.
Since you seem to be the expert of both past and current insane meta then you prolly have many unmodded insane RL wins to support these observations? Or maybe you need to go back to posting about a different difficulty level?If Insane isn't working for you, maybe you should go back to Nightmare for a bit and learn what does and does not work.
The game is harder now on insane but easier/harder debate is useless without context. You can make a game that is easy but still has bullshit deaths. Just make it so that player character is invulnerable but has a random chance to die every X turns. Then make X so that on average players can complete the game before X happens. Amazing.Anyone that tried doing what they used to do in 1.5 is going to get a massive shock, which is likely to make it seem like the whole game is suddenly a lot harder than it used to be.
Most, well really I think all, insane players I've talk to would be of the opinion that insane would be more interesting if the meta was less invulnerability to certain death and more consistently challenging. Personally I'd hope the game would be harder on insane but like I already explained the easier/harder debate is useless if you don't discuss the means of making the game easier/harder. Some of the dumb things have been toned down already but prolly the substantial backlash 1.6 received from higher difficulties players was one of the driving forces of this change. What is not driving any changes however is your pseudo psychology and meta-posting of how players perceive changes in games in general.
Re: the specific Vor death. I wouldn't call 1 K a turn unreasonable necessary but yeah you said he had essence of speed if he can do like 2 K per turn through capped resists still when he rolls bad then it does start to sound a bit unreasonable yeah. I haven't had any problems with Vor (six insane wins so far) but the current Vor seems like a good example of what is wrong with current patch if the dam indeed can go that high still after ele surge/freeze nerf. First of all, I think he still can roll invisibility so that's a -70 % modifier right there which you may or may not get. Second of all he has like 250 max mana with all sustains so one mana clash and he won't be casting much. At least in 1.6 Vor still was very much take 2 K dam and die instantly or take like 200 dam combined before he dies.
EDIT. I was informed that Vor lost invis too (along with Elandar) if this is the case then it should make further balancing easier.
Also as a "fun" story to finish the post, I had a nice lvl 24 corruptor start in 1.6.4 that is most likely gonna commit suicide since the assassin lord decided to kill the merchant for some reason.
Last edited by Mankeli on Tue Dec 10, 2019 3:33 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Re: [1.6.0] The game feels entirely overtuned/general feedba
My Vor had 424 mana with all sustains up, but this ended up being less relevant because Essence of Speed meant he's going first before I can snipe his mana pool (although I recalled wrong, only 7 levels of that) and he was hip deep in manasurge runes. Also Meteoric Crash and Biting Gale (so, 400+ damage and stun immunity gone at instant speed followed by free action meteor followed by Freeze) and Stormshield. Did not help that he was awake (or awakened? unclear) and teleported in to an ongoing fight with the boss in the opening room of that Pride. Also, richardhawk just posted that spells sometimes (always?) ignore crit shrug, so that's a stat I optimized for that doesn't return on investment.
Is he impossible to beat? Nope, killed him (after he killed me several times). But this being the rebalanced Insane is bonkers to me. I'm sure if I fed enough hours into it I would eke out a win, but what I wouldn't have is the sense that the difference between those 15-hour runs that lost and those that won was good build and tactical decisions on my part. It's just feeding coins into a slot machine and eventually you get a winner by combining good decisions with lucky boss generation. Could be interesting to some, but not to me.
Is he impossible to beat? Nope, killed him (after he killed me several times). But this being the rebalanced Insane is bonkers to me. I'm sure if I fed enough hours into it I would eke out a win, but what I wouldn't have is the sense that the difference between those 15-hour runs that lost and those that won was good build and tactical decisions on my part. It's just feeding coins into a slot machine and eventually you get a winner by combining good decisions with lucky boss generation. Could be interesting to some, but not to me.
Re: [1.6.0] The game feels entirely overtuned/general feedba
Yeah also the new AI is operational still too. Player power is prolly hard to balance if there is a chance that you you have to fight a vast majority of an entire pride level going back between the foyer and one small room like 2 tiles away from it. Somehow even the monsters in the north switch room found their way to the foyer. And I guess there is no need to assume this is even the worst case scenario that can happen, I've had the monsters behind the locked door aggro too on other games lol so if the perfect storm lands I guess it's possible that you need to literally fight the entire level at the entrance.
Re: [1.6.0] The game feels entirely overtuned/general feedba
Made a quick list of the "best" moments of 1.6-1.6.4 I've personally had on insane/RL, many of them already mentioned in this thread earlier. This only includes one skynet moment although plenty to choose from so not comprehensive by any means. Not all of the bugs/weirdness below are new to 1.6 but that really doesn't change anything. Some of the mentioned things have since been fixed.
Thalore Wyrmic : 3,8 K freeze crit from Elandar.GG.
Dwarf Annihilator: Almost died literally to the second monster in HP because its static shot bugged and hit me 4 times almost one-shotting my char. Managed to win though. Would have been hilarious to die to 69 wep damage monster while having 1,6 K HP, 500 exoskeleton and 100%/112 armour. Also shout out to the one million annihilator bugs, was sad to even have unlocked miasma. But it's a new and not awful class so I'll give it a pass this time!
Skeleton Shadowblade: abandoned the char after coming back from the East since it took 45 min to kill a randboss. I can't imagine the fun if I didn't have shadow grasp in 1.6.
Krog Rogue : Enter HP:3, no monsters in LoS, dig tunnel, then skynet starts pouring monsters without LoS until I finally die when two stealth monsters phase door next to me and I accidentally bumb once because I couldn't see the monster. Also lost Lifebinding Emerald because somehow got an arcane powered ring from limmir as krog.
Cornac Doomed: First feed bugs and I get permanent +hate regen. Then to offset gestures bug and I can't sustain them for the rest of the game since they spam lua errors and don't do anything. Managed to win though.
Krog Oozemancer: I lost BoL in slime tunnels after taking countless trillions of negative damage. Also got constant alchemist related (?) lua errors from some stair guardian. Managed to win though. In addition Adept was bugged to not work on passive talents so I couldn't get the cadditional rit shrug bonus from mitosis until I figured to remove and re-wear a crit shrug item which finally fixed it (this bug is fixed).
Dwarf Corruptor: Assassin somehow killed merchant, it seemed that merchant for some reason aggroed and attacked ass lord??
Thalore Summoner: I just suddenly and permanently lost one max summon ie I could summon the amount I was supposed to minus 1. Happened in tier-1s.
Special Mention: on my CoE winner Elandar went into full tilt and just spammed stone wall everywhere so I didn't even have to worry about him for like 33 %-50 % of the final fight.
Thalore Wyrmic : 3,8 K freeze crit from Elandar.GG.
Dwarf Annihilator: Almost died literally to the second monster in HP because its static shot bugged and hit me 4 times almost one-shotting my char. Managed to win though. Would have been hilarious to die to 69 wep damage monster while having 1,6 K HP, 500 exoskeleton and 100%/112 armour. Also shout out to the one million annihilator bugs, was sad to even have unlocked miasma. But it's a new and not awful class so I'll give it a pass this time!
Skeleton Shadowblade: abandoned the char after coming back from the East since it took 45 min to kill a randboss. I can't imagine the fun if I didn't have shadow grasp in 1.6.
Krog Rogue : Enter HP:3, no monsters in LoS, dig tunnel, then skynet starts pouring monsters without LoS until I finally die when two stealth monsters phase door next to me and I accidentally bumb once because I couldn't see the monster. Also lost Lifebinding Emerald because somehow got an arcane powered ring from limmir as krog.
Cornac Doomed: First feed bugs and I get permanent +hate regen. Then to offset gestures bug and I can't sustain them for the rest of the game since they spam lua errors and don't do anything. Managed to win though.
Krog Oozemancer: I lost BoL in slime tunnels after taking countless trillions of negative damage. Also got constant alchemist related (?) lua errors from some stair guardian. Managed to win though. In addition Adept was bugged to not work on passive talents so I couldn't get the cadditional rit shrug bonus from mitosis until I figured to remove and re-wear a crit shrug item which finally fixed it (this bug is fixed).
Dwarf Corruptor: Assassin somehow killed merchant, it seemed that merchant for some reason aggroed and attacked ass lord??
Thalore Summoner: I just suddenly and permanently lost one max summon ie I could summon the amount I was supposed to minus 1. Happened in tier-1s.
Special Mention: on my CoE winner Elandar went into full tilt and just spammed stone wall everywhere so I didn't even have to worry about him for like 33 %-50 % of the final fight.
Re: [1.6.0] The game feels entirely overtuned/general feedba
The number of winners in this list seems to be undermining the argument that Insane is now impossible.Mankeli wrote:Made a quick list of the "best" moments of 1.6-1.6.4 I've personally had on insane/RL, many of them already mentioned in this thread earlier. This only includes one skynet moment although plenty to choose from so not comprehensive by any means. Not all of the bugs/weirdness below are new to 1.6 but that really doesn't change anything. Some of the mentioned things have since been fixed.
Thalore Wyrmic : 3,8 K freeze crit from Elandar.GG.
Dwarf Annihilator: Almost died literally to the second monster in HP because its static shot bugged and hit me 4 times almost one-shotting my char. Managed to win though. Would have been hilarious to die to 69 wep damage monster while having 1,6 K HP, 500 exoskeleton and 100%/112 armour. Also shout out to the one million annihilator bugs, was sad to even have unlocked miasma. But it's a new and not awful class so I'll give it a pass this time!
Skeleton Shadowblade: abandoned the char after coming back from the East since it took 45 min to kill a randboss. I can't imagine the fun if I didn't have shadow grasp in 1.6.
Krog Rogue : Enter HP:3, no monsters in LoS, dig tunnel, then skynet starts pouring monsters without LoS until I finally die when two stealth monsters phase door next to me and I accidentally bumb once because I couldn't see the monster. Also lost Lifebinding Emerald because somehow got an arcane powered ring from limmir as krog.
Cornac Doomed: First feed bugs and I get permanent +hate regen. Then to offset gestures bug and I can't sustain them for the rest of the game since they spam lua errors and don't do anything. Managed to win though.
Krog Oozemancer: I lost BoL in slime tunnels after taking countless trillions of negative damage. Also got constant alchemist related (?) lua errors from some stair guardian. Managed to win though. In addition Adept was bugged to not work on passive talents so I couldn't get the cadditional rit shrug bonus from mitosis until I figured to remove and re-wear a crit shrug item which finally fixed it (this bug is fixed).
Dwarf Corruptor: Assassin somehow killed merchant, it seemed that merchant for some reason aggroed and attacked ass lord??
Thalore Summoner: I just suddenly and permanently lost one max summon ie I could summon the amount I was supposed to minus 1. Happened in tier-1s.
Special Mention: on my CoE winner Elandar went into full tilt and just spammed stone wall everywhere so I didn't even have to worry about him for like 33 %-50 % of the final fight.
Re: [1.6.0] The game feels entirely overtuned/general feedba
If flat impossibility were the argument, it might.
Its more that any given run might or might not turn out to be impossible based on ai cheating and boss talent level + talent combinations RNG, and that's not a decision the player has control over or can perceive from a world seed ahead of time.
Its more that any given run might or might not turn out to be impossible based on ai cheating and boss talent level + talent combinations RNG, and that's not a decision the player has control over or can perceive from a world seed ahead of time.
Re: [1.6.0] The game feels entirely overtuned/general feedba
My Lvl 26 PM on insane just got one-shot by Freeze (~700 damage) from the Weirdling Beast, despite starting the turn with Reality Smearing and Webs of Fate up. I didn't think to check carefully to see if Weirdling dispelled my defenses with his taints or just did crazy damage, but I've never been one-shot by Weirdling before. I went down the stairs, cast all my instant spell defenses, went to cast Entropy on him, and boom instadead.
Even if the scaling is no longer ludicrous, Freeze still seems significantly more powerful than the vast majority of other spellcaster nukes. Even at player TLs, looking at it using dev mode with adventurer. This seems like a strange choice, given freeze is the first talent in its category, has a short cooldown, and also has a chance to apply a strong debuff.
Even if the scaling is no longer ludicrous, Freeze still seems significantly more powerful than the vast majority of other spellcaster nukes. Even at player TLs, looking at it using dev mode with adventurer. This seems like a strange choice, given freeze is the first talent in its category, has a short cooldown, and also has a chance to apply a strong debuff.