'Which difficulty is the game balanced for?'

[ster]

massive snip about nerfing PC

removing tactics such as stairscumming, tracking and digging just leaves you with more one-shot situations though, and that's really not healthy for game balance - let's say you get a stair on dreadfell with 2 uniques and a shitload of rares. you've got no options but to blind psychoport on an uncleared level if you can't kill one then retreat upstairs, or dig a corridor to 1v1 them

i like start scumming and removing the 250 gold, randboss citizens or especially both would just make starting out on insane a mindblast-fest which isn't fun, and imo drowning is fairly well balanced though i'd like it streamlined more (character creation in insane gets you an item that gives you 1 set of randboss drops and bumps you up to level 5-6, no more rare+ in towns) though sometimes you get crazy shit like T4 standarts

also your solip win replaces balanced things with just vaulting a bunch of mnemonics and other stupid t5 gear so you really don't need to brag about it lol

e: finally you're plain wrong about a couple things, corruptor and AM can use robes just fine since their defenses are better than armor, and while heavy armor PM helps you can win insane in robe anyway since they're unkillable. robe and some leather egos are really good they're just not worth dying to every melee enemy in a roguelike like this


e:e: removing tactics universally available to characters makes bad classes worse, and doesn't affect the better ones. and removing the ability for things like bulwark to win insane is awful imo

[darkgod]

Please to all involved in the (interesting) discussions, keep the discussion light-hearted and playful
Thanks!

[ster]

i left out the part where insane and nightmare used to be harder for other reasons too; higher enemy levels and talent levels iirc, my bad
and they do still startscum even on insane... don't they?
also, another opinion, reiterated

I think the better question is whether players playing insane still startscum as much as they did and for what reasons they are startscumming. If starting money alters the need to startscum for 'some' (and not necessarily all) players then it is probably beneficial and within what Darkgod wants his game to be - discouraging towards unfun activities like scumming.

Start scumming required is minimal on good classes (some really bad ones like cursed probably need a tentacle totem/mindblast torque and level 6, or more skill than i have) and starting money is a big part of that, since you can buy a couple infusions, armor and a weapon with the 250 given insane. Getting to at least level 4-5 from LH drowning is also fairly major but that's ~3 rares or 1 unique/randboss so you'll get it in 3-4 tries max from the start - though if you hate yourself doing more gets you extra padding for the dangerous part of T1s, or you scum for dispersal gloves/maybe track lantern? to make the game tolerable when it throws nonsense like fearscape/invis at you

[bpat]

You don't even need startscumming, it just helps a lot. I got by fine with a Cursed without getting any good items from shops or drowning. I think the best I got was a passable rare t3 longsword and a couple okay Healing Infusions from Zigur. It's totally doable without startscumming but startscumming certainly helps.

[Effigy]

I think "balancing for Insane" is mostly a concern because changes made with Normal difficulty in mind can sometimes break Insane gameplay, but the reverse is rarely true. For instance, if a new talent is created that doesn't have limited scaling, it may go unnoticed on Normal but can cause Insane players to get one-shot by randbosses with level 30 talents. That being said, it's important to think about all difficulties because we want to provide the best gameplay experience for all players.

[darkgod]

What effigy said !

[Mex]

There are certain abilities (or design choices if you like) that are stronger on Normal. They are usually flat scaling items/abilities for example torques, Perfect Strike etc.

Items in general seem to have been forgotten in this topic. Remember that items on Insane are much higher quality when compared to Normal and items have a considerable impact on how strong a character is. This means that on Normal flat scaling items/abilities (or builds that make use of them) are usually stronger when compared to builds that rely heavily on skills or items that scale.

An example of this would be the skeleton's shield ability which is quite a lot stronger than any shielding rune you would find on Normal.

On Normal you might be tempted to skill abilities that improve saves or stats because you will not find these that high on items (and saves actually work on Normal).

Let's also not forget that talent level scaling abilities that require no intelligence to use always become an issue on higher difficulties such as Shield Wall being terrible on PCs but really op on NPCs.

I could expand on this more but I will probably explore game balance/meta gaming in a separate post at some stage.

But to answer the question of the thread. The game is balanced by a couple of different people who have different ideas about what balance means in the game but the general idea seems to be, can it play on Insane and beat it? Yes. Is it not too broken on Normal? No. Good. This is reflected in the recent new classes/redesigns and I think it is an alright way to balance the game. In an ideal world all classes would beat each difficulty equally well (but not necessarily in an equal manner).

There will always be the top and the bottom classes but old and crap classes/races should be redone. Challenge should come from the Difficulty setting not the class/race you pick. Is it good balance if every class can beat each difficulty with more or less the same effort/skill required? Perhaps. Or is it better to have dumb/easy classes (bump to win) that do much better on Normal but can't really do Insane forcing players to change class/race and pay a bit of attention to what they are doing?

[Zeyphor]

e:e: removing tactics universally available to characters makes bad classes worse, and doesn't affect the better ones. and removing the ability for things like bulwark to win insane is awful imo

then make the bad classes like bulwark archer rogue and cursed better so that they can win insane without startscumming
and iirc, rogue and cursed and even doomed are getting revamped for 1.5, so theres bulwark and archer left to get buffed for hopefully 1.6
also, i forgot about mindblast torques, i think that those should either get nerfed or be gone, or get replaced with something else; it just doesn't sound right if the only way you can get past the start on a difficulty that you're supposed to be able to win is if a certain shop sells you a specific kind of item that they usually won't have, though if bulwark archer rogue and cursed get buffed, i think that it won't be an issue since they could win insane without a mindblast torque at levels 3-15 then anyway

edit: @ ster ano isn't very good anyway and they could also stand to be buffed, and wyrmics... really weren't buffed right in, was it 1.3? basically they just got lower cds on their breaths, tornado became shorter range and wont hit them anymore, burrow and quake was changed, and some static stat buffs were added to the first ability of each vanilla drake category, then they got undead drake in embers
i think they were designed for normal, then they just slapped a bunch of then-unnecessary buffs on them, then in embers they got undead drake, the last talent of which sucks unless you get arcane might
i think anos are more designed for nightmare than insane; their defense is a little bit lacking and they don't hit very hard in single-target after midgame; also they tend to stack darkness damage, which makes me think that they should be revamped so they like using light damage outside of circles too
maybe if moonlit ray hit as hard in 1 turn as flame does in 3 turns, and fire beam was replaced with sunbeam and every sunlight talent hit alot harder, especially sun flare, and ano got another passive defense; sun paladin has all of light, chants, shield of light, second life, retribution, mark of light, and path of the sun for defenses, anos just gets wormholes, light, and chants

after eliminating bulwark archer rogue and cursed, the next weakest classes are wyrmic, anorithil, and maybe corruptor, which lacks defense after bone shield is taken down, and doomed which is already getting revamped, and those classes could stand to be buffed too, but not as much as rogue
i dont think any of those 8 classes are designed to be able to beat insane without doing scummy or cheesy stuff, unlike stronger classes such as skirmisher, psyshot(without inner demons), or brawler, but they don't have to be on the level of paradox mage, mindslayer, or sun paladin

but if skirmisher, psyshot, and brawler can't beat insane without doing cheesy stuff, then i just dont know what to say about that, aside from that maybe the game should be designed around nightmare, which should have more rares and 50% higher talent levels, instead

[ster]

e:e: removing tactics universally available to characters makes bad classes worse, and doesn't affect the better ones. and removing the ability for things like bulwark to win insane is awful imo

then make the bad classes like bulwark archer rogue and cursed better so that they can win insane without startscumming
and iirc, rogue and cursed and even doomed are getting revamped for 1.5, so theres bulwark and archer left to get buffed for hopefully 1.6
also, i forgot about mindblast torques, i think that those should either get nerfed or be gone, or get replaced with something else; it just doesn't sound right if the only way you can get past the start on a difficulty that you're supposed to be able to win is if a certain shop sells you a specific kind of item that they usually won't have, though if bulwark archer rogue and cursed get buffed, i think that it won't be an issue since they could win insane without a mindblast torque at levels 3-15 then anyway

ok cool, the bottom tiers get buffed. now you're left with mid tiers like ano and wyrmic struggling because tactics that you use to consistently survive fights are gone now. i barely ever use mindblast torque but you can actually substitute it for shield torque/tentacle totem/thorny skin etc... just fine. i think your problem is just that you hate charms/active abilities really. and stairdancing which is a legitimate necessity if you get screwed on spawn (that or mov infusion + burrowing(

[jenx]

Razakai's rework of archer, aka Marksman, will replace Archer and it is MUCH better. I'm testing it on Madness, and even surviving, but I can hardly get to level 10 on Insane with an Archer.

Brawler's can clear insane.

Wyrmics are fairly strong now, despite only receiving a light touch buff.

Can't wait to see the other changes in 1.5.

I think the entire game has evolved such that all the classes now need to be stronger, and most are stronger, due to the overall difficulty of the game increasing, and the need to satisfy many players who play only insane+. So we need to think, how should we balance the game from this point onwards, as the answer I believe is different than what it was say 2 years ago.

But this is a good thing. I've been playing this game almost from the very first release, and the improvement over time has been outstanding. And just when I a get a wee bit bored, either DG or an add-on brings something new to the game. For example, in recent months I've been playing on madness with the multi class add on. It's a hoot - TW + Mindslayer, Oozemancer + Solipsist, Brawler + arcane blade, and recently adventurer plus TW.

[ster]

>Psyshot and Brawler, two of the top 10 classes, can't clear insane

Every character in insane other than the characters that are literally invincible (PM/AM) are going to have to break up packs of randboss + uniques/rares somehow, which is going to involve digging corner sniping or stairdancing usually. Removing these mechanics would mean that you'd have to run around unexplored levels instead so suddenly these average situations in insane become RNG lethality.

The two examples you picked can't even properly startscum since getting good steamguns/gloves is such a rarity from LH that it's more viable to buy t3 weapons from the store and just play normally


e: wyrmic isn't too awful of a class honestly but it's solidly "mid tier" due to having a lot of mobility options and strong enough offense but not great defenses

[Zeyphor]

>Psyshot and Brawler, two of the top 10 classes, can't clear insane

Every character in insane other than the characters that are literally invincible (PM/AM) are going to have to break up packs of randboss + uniques/rares somehow, which is going to involve digging corner sniping or stairdancing usually. Removing these mechanics would mean that you'd have to run around unexplored levels instead so suddenly these average situations in insane become RNG lethality.

The two examples you picked can't even properly startscum since getting good steamguns/gloves is such a rarity from LH that it's more viable to buy t3 weapons from the store and just play normally


e: wyrmic isn't too awful of a class honestly but it's solidly "mid tier" due to having a lot of mobility options and strong enough offense but not great defenses

i wasn't saying psyshot and brawler couldn't beat insane period
of course they can
but i left the question of whether or not they could do it without corner sniping stairscumming or abusing bad AI via dig, for example, unanswered; im not sure if they could
i don't got nothing against corner sniping though; sometimes enemies actually hit you around corners
it doesn't make the start, a significant part of the game, far easier than it should be(theres trollmire and kor'pul for that now anyway), and it doesn't make it easy to rest after taking on one randboss of a pack of randbosses one at a time when the rest are all within 10 tiles of you, and it doesn't make enemies be at a lower level, and they can still chase and engage you after you do it, at least if you aren't too fast for them

[dadito]

I've won with both on roguelike and didn't really abuse anything like that

[grobblewobble]

I'm against power creep myself, but people tend to be incredibly against nerfs when you actually propose them and will find any number of nonsensical reasons to counter the fact that things have gotten too easy.
When I propose a nerf in chat or elsewhere it's practically always met with "I think we should buff everything to Shalore's level instead" almost unanimously, that's how power creep happens (especially considering shalore is pretty much always considered the best choice for everything, so imo it also needs a nerf).

This is the best point made so far in the thread. Whenever I pick a race, I feel that the best choice would be Shalore, or maybe Ogre in some cases. It hardly matters which class (Oozemancer obviously being the one exception).

This is bad, because it reduces variety. I still play other races than Shalore and Ogre, but only because I really want variation, even though I know that other races are simply weaker.

So if nothing else, can we please apply at least a very mild nerf?

[ster]

I'm against power creep myself, but people tend to be incredibly against nerfs when you actually propose them and will find any number of nonsensical reasons to counter the fact that things have gotten too easy.
When I propose a nerf in chat or elsewhere it's practically always met with "I think we should buff everything to Shalore's level instead" almost unanimously, that's how power creep happens (especially considering shalore is pretty much always considered the best choice for everything, so imo it also needs a nerf).

This is the best point made so far in the thread. Whenever I pick a race, I feel that the best choice would be Shalore, or maybe Ogre in some cases. It hardly matters which class (Oozemancer obviously being the one exception).

This is bad, because it reduces variety. I still play other races than Shalore and Ogre, but only because I really want variation, even though I know that other races are simply weaker.

So if nothing else, can we please apply at least a very mild nerf?

power creep should be taken to the most extreme level and applied to everything that's bad