Are you with or against the nerf?

NO! Of course, not! What the actual hell? DAMN IT!

A vocal minority b!tching around and we all get b!tchslapped, for having fun! Even i found the game "easy" on Normal, but i didn't nag and i certainly, never asked for dumbing down any tool in Miriam's disposal!

What the actual F happened here? This is a Single-Player game! An Igavania, too! With things like Duplicator, Power of the Sire, Crissaegrim and stuff! Most of us, especially backers, are old timers, to whom all this modern, autistic nonsense about "balance", is a miserable little pile of secrets! This is dung. Millenial MMO no-life peasantry, has invaded good old games now; what next?

IF there is a chance to avoid such idiotic and particularly irritating alterations to the game, please, by the gods, give it a second thought, before implementation!!! And learn to prioritize stuff correctly! Whatever happened to bug-fixing, delivering the already promised content, which by the way isn't FREE DLCs, but upfront PAID FOR, WITH-HELD CONTENT and most importantly? Offering a proper Switch version to those poor people... And stop ruining mercilessly, selling points of the game (things that work well and are OP, are actually a selling point in such games).

Damn.

I'm pretty firmly against the nerfs...with a qualifier. I think that some nerfs are okay, but that the real problem is that, out of all the tools in the developers' arsenal, making things weaker is the only one getting used, and it's being wielded fairly heavy-handedly. For example, Dullahammer Head getting nerfed I understand - though I also think that it served as a good tool for "I chose Hard on a new file and I'm having trouble". Nerfing familiars as a whole seems excessive, and making their power more heavily reliant on Level is punishing to Nightmare players. Welcome Company might have needed toning down, as there's nothing else that really fills its niche, and pretty much everyone uses it, but I disagree with their solution. It's currently the only Conjure (red) shard to last indefinitely until it hits something. Make it a Manipulate (blue) shard with a cost over time as long as it's out. That would be enough.

On the other hand, some nerfs seem completely arbitrary, like Craftwork. From my own testing, I determined that, if anything, Craftwork is currently too slow and too weak to be a viable source of damage-dealing. Literally all of the weapon adjustments make no sense to me. Rhava Búral and Rhava Velar are based on Crissaegrim/Valmanway, which was one of the most - if not the most - powerful sword in every game in which it appeared. People expect a powerful sword that does a lot of quick slashes. These swords were what they were supposed to be. If anything, I'd call them too balanced, but on the whole I think they were fine. Neither had DPS as high as the weapon they were paying homage to, and I found their numbers to be well balanced for where they were in the game. Rhava Búral is better than the Spiral Sword, which also trades lower attack for multiple hits, but it's found much later, so that makes sense. Rhava Búral is a good sword when you get it, but I've compared it with other weapons. It's good, not great, and not the best. Other weapons you'll have access to at the same time can outclass it. It just takes less skill to use due to the ability to use it while moving, and its "cone of hurt" property. In other words, it's fun to use compared to other, better weapons. Rhava Velar is in a similar boat. You don't get it until very late into the game, and you have to beat an optional boss to get it. There were weapons I had access before I got it that I found myself favouring for damage output and not having to get quite as in an enemy's face to hit them (so I had more room to dodge attacks). Weapons that came after it in the progression were even better. What I mainly used it for was farming drops with Pickpocket and not having to break my stride for fast traversal - a utility weapon, but not a main weapon. So again, although an endgame weapon, it was good, but not the best. It was situationally useful, and just fun. I didn't really use the Flying Edge much, but I strongly suspect that similar principles apply there. These weapon changes honestly feel more like the weapons are getting nerfed not because they're too strong, but because compared to other options, they're too fun to use. Fun doesn't need to be nerfed.

Again, though, the biggest problem I have here is that things people liked to use are getting nerfed, but nothing that players commonly passed up is getting buffed. You know what would be a great alternative to always using Welcome Company in boss fights (even though I honestly never did, and in fact barely touched it in my playthrough)? Make some other shards better. Make Flytrap slow enemies that walk on it, introducing that status effect sooner and increasing its currently abysmal chance to hit. I'd use that for sure in some boss fights. Heck, you could even give a slowing attack to the weeds for consistency. Make Summon Rat smarter, faster, poisonous, or some combination of the three. Have the "critical mode" for the summon shards - where they put out a huge version of what they're summoning and do a screen attack - be something that you charge up for, costing additional time and mana, but with a guaranteed cast. Currently, it's random, and I don't even know if all summon shards can do it, or just Summon Bat and Summon Shovel Armor, but if "hold the button to use more mana and do a bigger attack" was something that all of the Summon X abilities did, I'm pretty sure that they'd see more use. The same goes for Manipulate shards. Why do so many people only equip Craftwork, Bunnymorphasis, and Accelerator? It's not that those three are overpowered, it's that the other options suck. Sacred Shade is expensive and requires you crab claw your controller because it doesn't toggle. Healing has to be pretty much maxed out before it gives you a decent recovery rate for the cost. Beast Guardian is pretty much just a less helpful Directed Shield. Standstill is only available once you've pretty much beaten the game, so it's only really good for screwing around. Shadow Tracer is okay-ish for gunslinger builds, but due to positioning and not copying shards, pretty much useless to everyone else (you could maybe set up a good damage chain with the Penetrate spear technique, but that's a fringe case and would use a lot of MP). Feral Claws might be good, but the attack rate is slow, and again, only Bunnymorphasis is toggled. There's only nine Manipulate shards in the entire game, but Conjure and Directional (purple) get more than double that amount. Of those paltry options, most eat MP too fast, and don't give much benefit. So of course most people limit themselves to the one you need for puzzles, the one that actually works how they all should, and arguably the best movement ability in the entire game.

99% of the problems with balance aren't that players have too good of options, but that they don't have enough good options.

I'm in a neutral stance about the actual nerfing, as some abilities were kinda overpowered. But, them dishing out that in a patch, while not truly addressing those that have been patiently awaiting the Switch patch and even going so far as to pull their survey for the cosmetics, instead of addressing it are what has gotten me upset. Sure, I can just play my PC version more, even after I've 100% it, achievements and all, but that doesn't mean that Switch owners aren't suffering at the moment.

Wonder if they got tips from the pachinko overlords in this matter....

Immediately after the nerfs were announced, I was extremely against them. I didn't articulate myself properly until I had a chance to think about it a bit later though. I realised that I was actually more against the idea that, suddenly out of the blue, the game balance and progression is no longer considered a concrete entity any more. The actual number changes probably make sense, especially for some of the more broken stuff like Welcome Company. But I just wish this game had done this balancing during testing, and not after the fans have already gotten used to everything.

Before the nerf announcement, things were certain. The game was a known entity. But just the very idea that it's POSSIBLE this game will receive balance changes now makes everything feel a little meaningless. All of the numbers will be in this amorphous state of flux from now until whenever the heck the final DLC is supposed to come out in a bajillion years' time. I can't sit down and experiment with the tools this game provides and be happy with my strategies and accomplishments, because it could all change at a moment's notice.

So at the end of the day, the nerfs were probably good to make the end product more balanced. But they didn't go about it very well. I feel like the communication has been quite bad as of late.  The timing of these nerfs couldn't have been worse, with the stability patches being much more anticipated at the current moment. 

I think nerfs like this make much more sense to come out with content updates. You have to give a little bit of good with the bad, otherwise it feels like you're doing nothing but unfairly removing things.


I think that, if there are future nerfs to be had, they should only release them when we've got one of our promised "13 free DLCs" ready to roll too.

^ Cale You are the first person I've seen to actually consider the implications of each nerf and how it will actually affect the game, rather than just seeing a list of nerfs and going berserk over it. Honestly, it doesn't seem too terrible. It just feels more terrible than it is due to the unexpectedness of it all, and the poor timing.

In terms of the stability and performance of the game, this is not necessary and meaningless now.
At present, this is a single-player game. If the multiplayer mode is released in the future, balance will be the adjustment policy.

Exactly this! Nerfing is going to have a domino effect, unavoidably and inadvertedly. They simply won't know when to stop. Besides, EVERY (maxed) shard works wonders in higher difficulties anyway and boss fights, are ~1 second long. At least at 1/3 hard. 

If they want more of a challenge, self-imposed rules can easily cut it. In other games, such as pokemon for example, there are many famous methods invented by the players themselves, such as "Nuzlocke" and they abide strictly by the rules. But they are miserable hypocrites; they cannot even resist abusing the very same items that they hate so much! Those miserable, walking bags of salt, end up hating the very same things, that carry them easily throughout the game!

One solution, temporary at least, would be for a new mode, with the only difference that items/skills don't carry over. Gebel's glasses and Standstill for instance, can dominate anything that isn't immune to timestop. I am actually surprised that nobody whined for that "cheat", yet they bash good old portraits and craftworks (!), of all things! Have those "hardcore" whinies, actually played past Normal???

No "balance", please. Please, keep out from good old, single player games, with that MMO/competitive/dark-souls mentality. Or, go play Hard and Nightmare. Or, use other shards, too. Or both.

If devs take into account everybody nagging for x shard, y item and z mechanism, then the game will be dumbened down, watered down, to an unrecognizable state... Believe me, once the nerfs start, they never know where or when to stop. So, get a life and try different things. And stop demanding to ruin other gamers' fun, so as you can have your own; you can refrain from using something broken, but if you smash that broken thing altogether, those who want/need it cannot use it anymore. End result should leave every side happy, not a select few, entitled ones.