Balance

Devlog
61

Quirks

I can’t agree more. When I hear “Quirk” I think an “oddity” or a “bonus with a drawback”. Too many of the current quirks are just drawbacks. Like “[Condition] or else boons does not work”. They could instead add a bonus when the condition is met, and subtract said bonus when not met, like nevir’s sun/moon suggestion.

Bomb mining

I think it’s a bad idea to have the bombs have a certain chance to drop loot. This will cause waaay more terrain destruction than back when bombs were viable for mining. Back then you had to have some finesse, don’t bomb too much, you might destroy resources. Then you picked off the resources with a hammer before you moved on. It is more interesting than throwing bombs willy-nilly.

It would be nice if there was a forge boon or an augment that enabled the old way of damaging rock vs resources, but maybe with a radius penalty? Adding radius to a titanium or gem bomb made them incredibly efficient. It would be nice if iron bombs didn’t suffer much because of it. So maybe a % reduction rather than meter reduction?

Nevir’s idea with acid bombs are good too. While it would be safer, it also seems to be slower and requiring a bit more durability which could be a good trade-off.

I think it would be better if it was a boon rather than an augment so that you won’t find yourself in a situation where the second to last bomb you threw would have consumed the last charge of the augment. (unless you can stack augments on a weapon?).

In any case I think it is a good idea to preserve the old dynamic of bomb-mining in one way or another. It was after all a more interesting way of mining.

Bomb mining alternative

Another way to use bombs that would be useful, is if there was a detection augment/boon (preferably augment I think). Which would, when detonated:

  • Do no damage
  • Show resources within its radius as glowing blocks, visible through walls, for a brief moment, like 6 seconds.
  • Not reveal exactly what kind of resources, or only very roughly (like one color for ores/gems and one color for coal/fossils/tech)

The player could then choose to dig their way there or bomb away all the stone and maybe destroy some resources in the process.

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62

Gold and silver tools lack on damage and durability really bad easy comparing of those two to iron tools make it easy to keep on iron. I use most of my gold and silver to make titanium so those have their uses still hope to see some buffs on those tools. Right now recipe is expensive.

Like wrote here many times, what matters to most miners when mining on high level planets is to break blocks with less hits as possible so that tool lasts longer. Now diamond rules everything else on that, not problem except it makes its demand very high and makes for player who want to get their power coils for workbenches harder to done.
I still have uses for some fast hitting gem tools that deal less damage when I am gathering things on lower planets, and I see it nice that gem tools are varying so much :slight_smile:

Is this just about meteorite levels or also planet levels?
To me go to solo hunt on level 4 planet for level 1 meteorite(s) is better than going solo to level 6 planet to level 1 meteorite. Reward difference is coming on mobs to me. I remember doing level 6 planet meteorite alone (with non hunter build) and lost huge amount of my gem bow durability and brews, same time I could have done with same skill build on level 4 3-4 meteorites.

I hope you find some way to bring bomb mining back. It would help some players, I just hope there being some radius limits that planets wouldn’t be completely hollow because of bombs. I suggested somewhere before bombs that would damage/destroy resources that are lower or same level than bombs but even it is too much, to keep bomb mining fun enough :slight_smile: . When/if making changes to bomb mining, please compare bomb recipes to hammer recipes same, to me when bombs were used much on mining their recipes were too cheap.

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63

It’s just so insanely expensive to buy everything you need, especially after the bomb mining nerf. You’d have to be insane with hunting to get all the money you need to buy stuff to craft. I just want a couple hunts to be able to supply a gem tool really. Otherwise hunting with gem tools is incredibly pointless, which makes gem slingbows pointless

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64

Undo Boon Compound changes please.
Justice for Boon Compounds

65

Thank you guys for letting us know what your thinking.

100% agree.

It can’t be that hard to do the math of “how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie roll!”
How many blocks wears out an iron hammer, to how many blocks it takes to wear out a Silver or Gold? In a nutshell, a next level tier tool NEEDS to net more blocks by the time it wears out period. This is not hard math, or “major deep look at balance”. This part is 101. You guys developed this game and see the math. Just because the tool is faster, often means its going to wear out faster and not get you anymore blocks, but cost you 3 times the next lower tier.

Wood, copper, Stone, Iron, Silver, Gold, Titanium, Gem. With wood-iron you guys nailed progression. Then you come to silver-titanium and blew it. Again this is simple. Do the math and make the next level tier bust a percent more blocks before it wears out compared to how rare the metal is to mine. Forget the idea that gold is softer. By all rights there shouldn’t even be a gold hammer. So it’s only about the rarity of the resource. Silver should be more plentiful than gold.

side not gold fist are better than iron. and chisels are not part of the problem. They each have specific shape. Issues are only with tools/weapons.

With Boons, if the eyes had progression, ie: wildstock, spitter, hopper, roadrunner, and spitter eyes were not stupid low% of dropping it wouldn’t be an issue to me. If the spitter is the second most populated creature in the game why is it the hardest one to drop eyes? Progression out the window here.

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66

@rossstephens if your looking at balance, can we get a comment from any of the devs about how many saved locations we can have? We have been begging for this since pre-alpha. Now with so many planets we NEEEEEED more locations. Like infinite, and let it be alphabetical to.

This isn’t even a balance, it’s a major need. There has been multiple threads on it, even another current one now. At least tell us if it’s not possible because… Or yes you can.

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67

Thank you for recognizing the problem with Titanium, Silver, and Gold. These tools are so annoying to craft and their extra benefits are so silly that I just use Iron tools myself.

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Its pretty good but I don’t know that I’d say they nailed it. Copper tools are a decent improvement over stone but the durability issue plagues them too. In EA I think most people went straight from stone to iron, only reason people bother with copper now is because iron is very rare on starter worlds.

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69

I certainly never bothered with copper tools, I went straight from stone to iron.
I only just made my first titanium hammers last night. What an effort to craft them! Far easier to make 3 times the amount of iron hammers instead.

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70

This is plainly obvious to me. Let me go through my list when I buy a tool (or craft one).

  1. Will it break the armored block ? 100% Damage
  2. How often will I need to replace the tool? 50% Durability 50 % Damage (number of swings)
  3. How long will it take me to break said blocks? 50% Damage (number of swings) 50% Speed

So if we do some simple math Damage is 200, Durability 50, Speed 50.
Working backwords, Swift tools would need 4x more speed to make up for their lack of damage. Balanced tools would need 4x more durability. Currently neither of these is true.

There are some other points too:

Getting critical hits on rock is more harmful than helpful. Due to the way lag works with the servers, it usually does more to ruin the flow of mining, as instead of mindlessly hammering away, you have to readjust aim, and if speed is very high, you don’t even get a chance to do this. This means that you may inadvertently hit sand when you want rock or rock when you want sand. This is a net drain on durability as well.

Lots of low dmg hits very quickly is undesirable because of the way armor works. For example:

1 hit of 2000 - 500 pts for armor = 1500. 75% tool effectiveness. 2 hits of 1000 is: 1000 - 500 + 1000 - 500 = 1000. 50% effectiveness. In certain cases this means a slightly less damage tool that is 2x as fast takes 3x as many hits as a high dmg tool. This problem is even worse on higher level worlds with higher level armors.

Finally, there is a lost opportunity of fun to use other hammers. Here are some ideas to make the other hammers actually desirable:

  1. Allow certain hammers bonus to forging. If a blue hammer gets 50% more boon, people would want to try it.

  2. Add perks to hammers. Maybe the green hammer adds 10% block armor penetration per swing. Maybe it actually GIVEs you stamina as you swing it (so there would be a reason to use it after using a diamond hammer to get your stamina back)

  3. Maybe the topaz hammer gives you a buff that increases your luck… then you’d want to use it for mining your ores. This is cool because then you’d have different reasons to use different hammers.

  4. Maybe a red hammer gives you double stone drops (but not ore… you gotta use yellow for that)

  5. maybe a hammer increases in power the more you use it. When it gets to max, it does a massive blow in a 3x3x3 line or something…

  6. maybe there’s another hammer that the diameter of the area of affect grows the more swings you do.

  7. Maybe a blue axe makes you swim faster, or triples your breath underwater. Or makes you jump higher.

  8. Maybe another one hits like a bomb with a 3d spherical AOE, instead of a square so its better to chop trees.

  9. Maybe a purple hammer is the only one that can mine a certain block or metal, but it does almost no dmg to anything else.

There’s ton’s of ideas. In order to keep things fun, I think you should avoid “balancing” the hammers with each other. IF you try to just do a stats adjustment, you’ll force us to make a boring decision, and if they are all relatively similar in function, we will just buy the cheapest one… at the moment it would be diamond because they are so easy to mine, but in the future it might be some other gem. We will just buy whatever is cheapest and not even think twice.

If on the other hand there is a reason to use a certain hammer (for example, I mine with a diamond one, to do lots of damage, but then switch to a topaz hammer to mine ores with increased luck). Look at that! That’s pretty cool. Maybe I go to collect sand and I use a ruby shovel, cause it doubles the amount I gather. Maybe i hold a ruby slingbow because it doubles my health. A blue grapple makes me run faster, but a green one shoots farther… Who knows. Make some cool and fun changes and please don’t get into the mindset of “Let’s reduce the damage of diamond 5%, or buff the speed of sapphire but 5 pts”. We don’t like numbers, they don’t mean anything to us. We like cool things, things that already exist in the game, like luck and radius. If we have to choose between these, it feels more fun.

2 Likes
71

on the other hand: in case u can break a block with a low damage, swift tool with the same amount of hits than a higher tier slower tool, then the swift tool is superior. i still used copper axe on my surface gatherer when gathering on low lvl planets. depending on my skill set it was better to use copper shovel over iron shovel, again due to low damage needed in that situation, where the speed of the tool gets much more important.

@olliepurkiss:

  • i dont wanna see a change in iron, because its pretty good as it is right now. Sticking with iron and a good miner skill build is a successful strategy…
    It is prevalent enough to base ur early game progression on ur collection of iron tools, it has a very high efficiency, so u can mass produce low tier forged stuff and experiment with it, its durable enough, and with proper skills it is efficient enough to do everything.
    silver and gold is just too precious, especially in the early game, to use them as tools. But how about raising the efficiency of gold tools to nearly 100%, so that it still might have a use as easiest to forge…

  • titanium are a pretty good bridge to forged gem tools (i dont wanna use gems on tools when im not able to forge them approprietly). Difficulties only arose for some due to requirements in ressources gathered on the surface of higher lvl planets. Because many people didnt see the use of a good surface gatherer until then, they tried with what they had and failed. People will adapt and prices too. i dont think titanium tools are too hard to make, compared to their gain.

  • pls dont bring back bomb cheating

  • i believe a majority of people prefer damage over other stats for different reasons: either they consider damage reducing effect from the aoe boon already in, or they dont have a skill build that suits their activity (i even saw a number of new players thinking that the damage epic only influences combat), or they are on a higher tier planet with lower tier tools (not all will do the most rational choice, some will just stick with what they know and experienced before, and that is that damage made them the best progress). That, and the fact that many starting to gem hunt with diamonds, makes diamond tools preferred over others.

  • It is not that the other variants are “useless” or less worthy. The block armor and the energy expense both scales with the number of hits, therefore with the action speed. That makes damage preferrable over speed until the one-shot cap(!). Although some player seem to forget that in the end the product of both decides the outcome. Crit messes with this one-shot cap, which lets damage dissipate.
    If u would tie energy expense to caused damage, and not flat on every action, it would give a completly different picture …

  • higher lvl meteorites worth the risk, if u know what u are doing >.< i soloed some lvl 3 meteorites on serp and its survivable, if u use terrain and brews and stuff. And the gems i got made me look for more.
    it always depends what u are looking for: just a brawl? oort stones? gems? hunt loot like creature trophies?

i disagree with u that its not worth risk and time investment, considering that u can have different motivations in doing a meteorite.
Especially for those people who run oort stone hunts on lower lvl planets to mass farm them, a higher lvl meteorite is not much harder than a lower lvl one and its a welcome diversion, and in addition the loot is better. what more do u want?
I agree: with low to none hunting skills and low lvl and with bad gear u maybe should decide to stay away from higher lvl meteorites. but everyone in this game progresses eventually and then it almost turns into the opposite: lower lvl meteorites on low lvl planets are almost not worth the effort.

for balancing issues i can identify 3 general types of players who have completely different capabilities on each character lvl:

  • theres the “casual”: most new player, who headon dive into the game without research, start as casual (me included) trying different skills, cramming everything into the character ending up in a mess of everywhere distributed skills. At some point they get enlightend by the idea, that the " jack in all trades, but the king in none" takes too much time and grind in this game if they wanna make progress before the grave…
    they were lvl 15, 20 or even 30, but only able to cut wood at lvl 8, mine at lvl 9, hunt at lvl 4, so everything became grindy, hard to do and time consuming.

  • people with a number of alts: every character there fulfills only one or 2 roles, so a lvl 15 character is a lvl 15 lumberjack. and doesnt mine.

  • those who quick lvl one character: there are a number of ways to pump up experience gain, for example using mass crafting to lvl while afk and using the economy and other player to ur advantage. They use different skill sets and resets to adjust their character to their needs. But usuallly their character serves more than one role at a given time, usually they have much higher character lvl and their lvl is only an indicator of their diversity.

So u have completley different player types on different lvls with sometimes completely differing skill- and mindsets on the same task, with the casual type usually failing in it to some degree. Then u collect all the blames and accusations, all the suggestions and discussions and try to add something to the game that assists the casuals, while not making it too easy and boring for the other types… wow thats a challenge :smile:

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72

Semi new player here so from my perspective. I go with iron because it is easier to find. I can make the tools in a workbench and not have to have anything that has items (spark generator) that I’m not able to make yet. Haven’t pushed yet because my son has the ability to do so.
Getting silver and gold. Finding it is a problem; my son and I have traveled to level fours and he has gone to level fives and still can’t find sliver or gold. He does find lots of places where others have mined and cleaned the planets. Lots of the tunnels are still there, in parts.
Anyhow, you want more sliver and gold tools made, lengthen the strength of the toll and how long it last to make it worth while to hunt for the silver and gold. Which will have those who can hunt get more and charge a higher price for the tools. Catch-22

73

u find both silver and gold in low altitude, so from 5-40 maybe, and silver only under low terrain, while gold under deserts. either u dig down and search or explore canyons, caves and such… get a good grappling hook and search in alcyon, where the terrain is open to bottom maybe, if u want to avoid mining.
check the knowledge tab next time to see where those seams are located and use the atlas

but the tools arent better anyway, so its better to save your precious metals for machines and alloy

74

You could just… You know… Remove Silver and Gold tools, and remove Alloys, so you just need Silver, Gold, and Titanium Bars. Then make Silver and Gold Bars required for something else.

Such as… Maybe a way to upgrade Iron Hammers, Shovels, and Axes, without needing a Forge. Like applying Silver to an Iron Hammer increases it’s durability, while Gold makes it swing faster. But A, you can only apply 1, and B, newly upgraded hammer, renamed to like “Silver/Gold Infused Hammer” and using the Silver and Gold skins in game, can’t be forged. So it’s a trade off. It boosts the 3 tools in one single aspect, but it can’t be Forged anymore, so still much weaker than a Forged Iron Hammer.

^ And if you DO, do this idea. Please just make it require an Iron Tool, and Silver/Gold bars! No other useless grinding bullshit!

75

jiro >.< do u actually get that u have more alloy than precious metal bars when u mass craft them? removing alloys would increase the grind, not decrease it

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76

Dude just don’t answer. Don’t feed troll.

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78

I don’t craft Alloys, as I don’t make Silver, Gold, or Titanium Tools. What I do know, is that to make an Alloy, takes Iron and Silver/Gold bars, and then that Alloy + Titanium bar. So takes 2 bars, then 3 bars. Farming 2 and then 3 items. Compared to just farming Iron, or just farming Silver, or just farming Gold, or just farming Titanium.

I mean dude, I JUST went Gem Mining like an hour ago, found 140 Diamonds. It was boring as hell, and through it all, found 0 silver, 8 gold, and 11 Titanium. And that’s with an Emerald 3x3 Hammer that 1 hit on T5* Serp. I would HATE to have to farm Silver, Gold, and Titanium all the time. I pity the people making Titanium and Gem Tools. It’s just not worth the grind it takes.

79

Another Lie! Serp is T5.

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80

u can find gold and silver very easily in the cliffs of alcyon. u dont need to mine at all for them, just a good grappling hook

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81

Now you’ll read how grapling hooks are not the way some players choose to play, or maybe something more creative :joy:

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