Maybe I'm not good at the game, but I beat spar mines and sunken yards, and then nothing. I was grinding to upgrade, but nothing does enough. I seem to have hit a big wall of no synergy. (This is after the initial 6, which are what I consider the tutorial.)
Despite the information given, it's very much unclear what lets some builds win over others. In particular, I found a situation (the Spar Mines) where the game really wanted me to equip a lv1 Chalk Rune (granting +1s Shocked Duration) instead of a lv2 Storm Rune (granting +5.2s Shocked Duration and +41% Lightning Damage, on my lightning-damage only build). Somehow, equipping the apparently worse gear made the difference between winning and losing? This made no sense to me.
Poking around a bit more, I've found the issue. Most enemies have a 'wrong answer penalty', a huge nerf to damage (sometimes -90%) if the player doesn't have the exact intended build equipped. This is incredibly unfun; instead of it being a game of trying to make a build that beats the challenge ahead of you, it's a game of trying to guess a secret code that the developer left cryptic hints about.
If the player can devise a non-standard build that works, either through unexpected interactions or brute force, you ought to let them. Giving a huge nerf whenever the player doesn't do exactly what you wanted them to do is just bad game design.
← Return to game
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Maybe I'm not good at the game, but I beat spar mines and sunken yards, and then nothing. I was grinding to upgrade, but nothing does enough. I seem to have hit a big wall of no synergy. (This is after the initial 6, which are what I consider the tutorial.)
I will take a look and address it. Worst case, you can see the intended build by looking through the Challenge View to see what should clear the node.
Despite the information given, it's very much unclear what lets some builds win over others. In particular, I found a situation (the Spar Mines) where the game really wanted me to equip a lv1 Chalk Rune (granting +1s Shocked Duration) instead of a lv2 Storm Rune (granting +5.2s Shocked Duration and +41% Lightning Damage, on my lightning-damage only build). Somehow, equipping the apparently worse gear made the difference between winning and losing? This made no sense to me.
Thanks for that. I will take a look and get this sorted.
Poking around a bit more, I've found the issue. Most enemies have a 'wrong answer penalty', a huge nerf to damage (sometimes -90%) if the player doesn't have the exact intended build equipped. This is incredibly unfun; instead of it being a game of trying to make a build that beats the challenge ahead of you, it's a game of trying to guess a secret code that the developer left cryptic hints about.
If the player can devise a non-standard build that works, either through unexpected interactions or brute force, you ought to let them. Giving a huge nerf whenever the player doesn't do exactly what you wanted them to do is just bad game design.
Thanks for that feedback. Penalizing builds is not at all intended. I’ll have a new update by this weekend