I think I agree, infinite bow shots are still powerful and can kill piranhas etc easier compared to throwns that need to be picked up after use (often wasting turns in dungeons). The only way for throwns to powercreep bow is if each thrown stack is like 15+ pieces. I think 6-10 per stack is enough?

However, I also agree with others that telekinesis is too expensive. The energy costs are high and it could’ve been used for powerful scrolls and potions. When thrown weapons scatter, like force cube dropping everywhere as I need to target multiple foes, we’d need telekinesis to target multiple tiles and rooms and the “thrown weapon build” becomes too expensive to be worth it. I think telekinesis needs to be cheaper to allow thrown SoUs to shine. The only other use for telekinesis is grabbing the 4 chasm keys, but we still need float and that hidden room is rarely worth it.

The only mild success I had with thrown builds is probably boomerangs as they return to you without telekinesis. I think there’s another big problem with thrown + telekinesis, I’d waste turns in combat picking up weapons with tele. If telekinesis usage is instant, then other thrown weapons could come close to boomerang’s turn economy/dps. Wands and other weapons also don’t have this slowness problem, which is why it’s never enticing to upgrade thrown weapons.

Oh that’s alright, I figured it’ll be hard to balance dart SoUs and I guess crossbow’s the way to upgrade darts. I’d love for buffs to the tipped effects though!

I think the balance for earthroot + paralytic dart is a very good example. I find myself using both the seed’s armor effect and the 2x paralysis equally, depending on situation. (but unfortunately on FIMA I only use the latter, I think this challenge removes too much gameplay options like warrior armor seal, earth wand, close-ranged abilities etc)

But for something like stormvine vs 2x shocking dart, the latter’s damage is way too low and they don’t have debuffs or fun effects. In this case, I always feel it’s better to use stormvine for either chasm kills or alch energy + potion. Same goes for swift seed’s timefreeze, it’s a much more powerful effect compared to adrenaline x2. For icecap, it’s often better to use them as energy, cheap frost AoE, or on eternal fire rooms, compared to the 2x single-target chill that doesn’t last as long. And mageroyal seed’s valuable to save for cleansing potion food, etc. I personally think the costs aren’t worth it for the tipped darts I mentioned, and the extra gold cost can often be used for better things

Darts are only from shops. I sometimes buy them if they sell paralysis/incendiary, or if I have the seed to make them! Those can be a little bit useful especially in high challenges, but saving money for heal potion etc is usually preferable. The rest of the darts are meh and not worth the costs (you need to re-tip the darts with seeds after each use). Even with cleric’s lategame trinity ability among other things, from my experience I can’t justify using these other darts, but that’s just my personal opinion

This is a great addition! Finding upgraded/enchanted thrown stacks makes it enticing to invest SoUs further to make em unbreakable. I especially love those thrown weapons with unique effects and debuffs, instead of just pure damage weapons. A badge for +15 thrown weapon run would be great, a lot of new players don’t know you can actually upgrade them, and it adds variety in runs to try out new things!

Can we also have buffs for darts in this update? We could make it viable to dump SoUs on them. A lot of them are not worth the seed+gold cost, save for a few notable ones. I think paralysis, incendiary, and mayyyybe displacing is already good (though the fact that they can miss makes them unreliable crowd control options). But it’s often difficult to justify using the rest. The duration of chill/adrenaline dart is too short, and shocking dart deals tiny damage. In these cases, it’s always better to save the seed and just get rid of the enemy with thrown/wand/ability/items/etc. Poison has many immunities, and rotberry/healing/holy dart consumes precious resources and they’re not impactful enough in dungeon runs (when compared against their opportunity costs). Sungrass seed is always used as my featherfall + food + heal, and starflower is for blandfruit level ups. Cleansing dart has no uses, the single enemy who uses buffs like adrenaline necromancer will spam it so much that it’s not worth the dart usage to clear their buffs.

If possible I’d love for additional roguelike ascension / fun challenges too that don’t take away gameplay like barrenlands. The only challenges I activate nowadays are badder bosses + champions unfortunately. Sometimes new enemies, items and challenges like “+20 pick run” makes me and friends revisit the game every few months. Thank you so much for the updates Evan!

I strongly agree with the things you say, the challenges could really use a rework. Warrior suffers too much from it.

Removing fun options in the game like barren lands + pharma feels awful. We could just nerf potions instead of removing all of them including heal bombs/aquatic rejuvenation/etc. Skills and trinkets like Blood Vial rely on potions, and the challenge ends up removing too much from the game. Barren lands also remove Warden’s skills, as well as the entire game’s strategy with seeds, plants, etc. Here’s hoping for a challenge rework someday, it’ll keep the game fresh! The old challenges could stay as a hidden option in the settings.

Thanks for the update, I hope the game can continue to be updated even after it’s complete! This update’s okay so far but I think the warrior now looks a bit too chubby and uncanny, the previous splash feels more like an intimidating viking (though he was too thin!)

I strongly agree with this change, the old art was way too skinny

I think I agree with sirxdaemon that the cleric is getting too strong, it’s starting to powercreep even the rogue. Though I personally don’t mind it as there’s finally more good options with high challenges. Having said that, I think data can be manipulated (losing is very easy to do in the hundreds), as I’ve seen some select few people online who are forceful about wanting the cleric to be the strongest.

Really loving the rare enemies btw! I hope there will be new common enemies or minibosses in the future to freshen up the game, as rares are difficult to find. Interactable torches and breakable barrels will also be wonderful as it adds strategy.

Glad to hear it, I’m looking forward to summon elemental buffs! At the moment it severely harms the player as you sacrifice upgraded wand + potions + energy for it. The free upgraded wand alone gives a much larger power boost. We could have a unique use for embers (like rotberry throw), as well as a reliable summon option in alchemy table. I think having allies in SHPD makes the game sooo much more interesting, but they’re often too weak and unavailable in runs, which is why I was hoping summon elemental becomes an item you can craft in every run via arcane stylus.

I see! I think this trinket in particular needs to be juggled like Newt Eye, it’s a playstyle I personally love. Mage, Cleric, and Duelist have plenty of guaranteed hits and they won’t need to juggle as much, but I feel the other 3 classes will find it very hard to use this, wands/doors etc can only be used so much against multiple enemies. A “defensive playstyle for all entities” effect is generally more advantageous to dungeon enemies, as they tend to summon etc and overwhelm. It’s dangerous and I’d probably only use this trinket if I can juggle! It’s very nice if the evasion boost stack multiplicatively for evasion builds

The rare enemies and trinket look great so far! Can we temporarily cancel this effect by throwing it away from the bag? I think that’s extremely important to make this trinket usable, as wand charges are finite. And does the evasion boost work multiplicatively and stacks with ring of evasion, rogue freerunner evasion boost, etc?

Looks like this trinket will benefit a lot for mage, cleric, rogue cloak + evasion, and duelist’s many guaranteed hits. Unfortunately warrior doesn’t benefit as much from this trinket compared to the others.

I’m hoping Summon Elemental can be tweaked this update so they don’t rely on elemental ember alchemy recipe, and bring another throwing or passive use for the elemental embers. Summon Elemental is too expensive due to the wand and potion/transmute cost. And if it’s a craft you can do on any run (maybe using arcane stylus) it’ll make minion builds more reliable in this game I think. Putting skill points for minion builds, not knowing whether you’ll even find a minion in this run, is too risky! Most hero minions are very endgame.

I’m loving these barrels etc, makes the world feel alive. Maybe they can be breakable or interactable, like torches turning on/off with flame/water on the city? They could have small advantages and loot.

Probably since you can walk past it diagonally, it’s not a bug, but the misclick will be a jumpscare!

Glad to hear it won’t be a second sewers at least! On another note the Cleric has been great. So far Priest plays overall better than Paladin due to Hallowed and Lance. I can’t justify putting points on Mnenonic though. The Cleric spells affecting both solo heroes and NPC allies makes the class well designed I think, hopefully there’s more of these for other classes as I can never justify picking Warlock siphon & ally warp. SHPD has a nice niche of having NPC allies, which is often nonexistent in these kinds of games, but too bad they’re too weak and usually unobtainable in runs. The Cleric is changing this though, if only a bit!

I personally prefer a dwarven arena to fight and spend tokens on, but this idea could make the vault fun! The sewers is incredibly painful with challenges and 99% of my deaths are here due to having no bag options to fight blazing crabs, swarm intelligence, etc. But by the time I reach dwarven city I’ve already won the game and adding another “sewer problem” RNG-check on the imp quest is terrible.

But if there’s OP fun items immediately obtainable in the vault, like a staff that summons an army of minions, or a beam that turns enemies into gold, it’ll close the gap between 0-chal and 9-chal making the “sewer problem” on this quest disappear. SHPD’s allies is honestly one of its charms and they seem fun to use, but summon elemental and dried rose etc are too weak + expensive + unobtainable in most runs. It’ll be fun if we summon an army in the vault, making Warlock soul siphon etc worth taking. Though in the future I’m hoping summon elemental can be crafted on all runs using arcane stylus, it’s such a waste of a cool item if it’s mostly unusable. It’s much weaker than the +1/+3 sacrificed wand, on top of that we need to spend 10 energy + potion + scroll for it.

Yup, I agree it can be good! But I think its main problem is that it’s only good in a vacuum, but when compared to other upgrade options or wands it’s inferior. It needs tons of SoUs for reliable corruption, making it hard to use especially with forbidden runes, and spending one charge + turn to give one random debuff is generally not worth it, as you need luck to find the right debuffs for the current situation. Other wands like lightning can just simply kill things immediately instead of debuffing, personally I think wand of corruption needs to be a good debuffer in the first few hits before it corrupts?

As for my personal pick for worst wand it has to be transfusion, I mostly just use it to prevent eye beams, maybe some small shields. It has its uses but I prefer blastwave or fire!

I also got harassed by him many months ago when I criticized the old salt cube, clover trinket and warrior. It makes it hard to talk about these things when you know he will appear every time you talk about these, and it’s annoying to see that he’s on Lemmy too. Best to just downvote and ignore him. On another note I’m loving the new clover trinket update!

Love the update so far! Cleric’s Trinity is well-designed and makes bad items like divination and darts useful. If I may, I’d like to give one suggestion for 3.1 warrior. He might feel better if he stays simple but also provides optional complexity. For example, his Hold Fast talent could simply give him extra armor that’s unaffected by FIMA, but allies also get the armor with higher amount. This allows optional minion builds for warrior, preventing minions from getting instakilled as they’re often frail. Cleric’s other spells are also well-designed and have this trait of being useful for both solo-hero and minions, and it’d be great for summoner builds to have more skill support like this as they’re just too weak. I’d rather not have Warlock Soul Siphon though, as this skill is strictly for minion builds and doesn’t benefit solo heroes.

I’d also love for summoner builds to always be possible in runs, as dried rose and summon elemental aren’t guaranteed craftables, not to mention they’re too weak without investment! Finding dried rose too late is also a problem as you can’t find the petals anymore. I think summon elemental should always be craftable in runs, and make it very cheap as the potion and transmutation imbue cost afterwards are expensive. I recommend one arcane stylus and 3 energy as the alchemy recipe for 5 summons! The elemental embers unique effect can instead be a weak reusable bomb, like rotberry seed throw.

Maybe it’s just me but I personally think Censer is B-minus tier now, Cleric Cleanse can use Censer! Mnemonic Prayer still sucks though, dumping on Lance and Hallowed is way better. I’d personally vote for Vial, Mimic, Sundial, Parchment, Trap as the worst, the rewards are never worth the pain. Can’t decide which is worst, but Vial has extremely niche uses. It’s unnecessary on 0-chal and it’s useless on high-chal since there’s no dew, potion, etc. Salt Cube is better for diet. You somehow need to find good viscosity armor early in the sewers to actually pick Vial.

I’m more interested in the worst-craft section, cooking meat is obvious first place but I think the runner-ups are more important to tweak like unstable spell/brew, summon elemental, alchemize.

Huntress is definitely nicer! By “generic”, I meant rogue is starting to look more like a generic guy instead of rogue, the previous design felt more… criminal? A scar or eyepatch are some ideas that would exaggerate and show that the character is a rogue, but it’s not an important issue I think.

Though there may be some confirmation bias, I’ve been noticing more player complaints regarding trinkets outside of cliques. Ultimately trinkets make the game harder, which I am personally in favor of, but making choice-traps might not be the best way to do so. Data often have skewed meaning: I still try to +3 all the trinkets to see what it does, but the fact that I’m often upgrading them doesn’t mean that I think it’s a viable choice.

I used to think stuff like Parchment, Newt Eye and Mimic Tooth are good, but it’s very resource-extensive and often puts me in a much worse position. Other alternatives (like shop RC scroll, torch) are cheaper and better. Nowadays, for serious runs I mostly ignore trinkets completely to guarantee wins, but this is of course my personal opinion and other players can upgrade trinkets and do whatever they want to make their game fun.