Chests of Evil balance discussion

I was recently looking closely at the resists of monsters on floors 11 to 15, and noticing that they are really not themed very much. Earlier floors do a good job of mixing up the resists per floor, which sometimes provokes the player to swap out equip by floor, or even skip an entire floor if their damage is monochromatic. The last few floors lack this level of theming. I suspect that's a factor in what makes the CoE weapons feel too good in the late-game.

A sword that does +24 damage is currently great against just about everything. You'll use it until you find a lirpa that does + 26 then that sword goes in the cube, regardless of weapon skills or other factors. If there were a late game floor and a floor in the same way that the mid-game features a floor and a floor, then weapon choice would become more subtle and involved than simply "which has the largest number", and CoE items might not auto-replace all other weaponry. Just a thought.

Of course, that would require a ton of work re-theming floors and re-building monsters, so it would probably make poor David's head asplode. Dbaumgart, if you pay me $5 I'll delete this post.

 

Given the connection between Unarmed Combat and , mayhap a few monsters on DL13 could have ? All that time in the dojo has got to have built up their Ki a little bit...

 

I should sig this.

 

I knew you were plotting to make my head explode, R_B_Bergstrom. And you would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for those meddling kids and their dog too.

Seriously though, It's not like I'm going to go call the Hague War Crimes Tribunal if the monsters later in this game get better resists.

 

That's understandable.

And speaking of less people making it down there, Nicholas, did you pump up Inconsequentia's payouts as an undocumented feature of 1.0.10?

I'm playing on floor 10, and I just got two Inconsequentia rewards with 11 and 14 points of bonus enchantment. Previously, on 1.0.9 I can't recall getting more than about 5 points ever. CoE bonuses are still a good deal better than that because they're focused to the damages, but it's not nearly as much of a gap as I was remembering/imagining.

 

I had that happen to me too, recently, even though then i went to another Inconsequentia, and got an item with +4.

 

Also if you find, say, a hexblade axe (or whatever it happens to be called) on a floor two shop - RNG just messes with you so much.

 

Magic Hexaxe of the Magic Axe Lords

 

Don't beat blingy fish on level 1

 

You may or may not already realize this, but you're not the David I was talking about.

David Baumgart is the Art Director for Gaslamp Games. He does the monster animations, and a lot of the xml. Creating a single monster requires dozens of sprite drawings and a pretty long xml entry. Re-theme-ing entire levels would probably require creating several new monsters. It might also require entire new sets of floor and wall art. A ton of work for one already-very-busy man. That's why I wrote:

 

Oh. Okay.
My bad. I thought we were all on a drive DavidB1111 crazy mood at that point.
That's why I thought you were talking about me, especially with the re-theming floors and re-building monsters part.

 

Silly me, I thought we were discussing the re-balancing of Chests of Evil. I must have been off-topic.

 

To be fair, I thought driving DavidB1111 crazier was the point of this thread. Now I am lost and without purpose...

I still do not think CoE are game breaking, but that can be added...

How about different alternatives? CoE could go Poof! and turn into a Krong Altar. Or spawn a dozen random consumables in that one tile. How else can we slay this dragon and make heads asplode?