You say some QoL changes are good, yet call increasing the stack size to 99 “insane.”
That’s purely subjective. In fact, this was one of the most requested changes by players.
Bold and decisive changes are exactly what a game in early access needs. Playing it safe and only tweaking things slowly based on feedback often leads to a game with no clear identity.
The idea of “keeping the intended feature while reducing how oppressive it feels” sounds reasonable, but in practice, that usually just means ignoring feedback and clinging to outdated design choices.
These hotfixes haven’t just made the game easier.
They’ve made it less tedious and more fair in many areas.
It’s fair to worry about the game’s direction, but to say that the overall quality is dropping because of these changes is an overstatement.
So far, the patches have shown a willingness to listen and improve the experience. That’s a strength, not a weakness.
My Endless Winter staff is doing pretty much zero damage outside the final hit to enemies in the Pestilence and the “Danger lv25” weekly bounties are showing as red skulls to my max level 30 character. I have 42 Intelligence.
Homing Frost was literally all the meaningfull damage my mage character in cloth armor could do to enemies, since the staff swings at 42 intellect would take more than 11 hits to even kill a regular wolf target.
The last attack in the Endless Winter staff where you dash back and shoot the projectiles doesn’t even give focus.
And all the damage the attack sequence of the Endless Winter staff is backloaded into that final attack that gives no focus. But that’s a problem because I can’t finish the attack sequence against most enemies or I’m going to be smacked for 70% of my health with the current mob scaling in “Danger lv25” and Pestilence areas.
I have lv13-14 upgraded plague gear in every slot and I am barely scratching upscaled mobs.
You should have nerfed Homing Frost by making it scale off Int/Faith so mesh/plate melee builds can’t use it instead.
Omg thank you thank you thank you for increasing fall height. I’ve been bashing my head against hardcore playthroughs, which is genuinely a great time, but EVERY SINGLE DEATH I’ve had was due to gravity. I’ve basically stopped taking risky climbs and jumps for chests/nodes because I’m so scared of dying from falling
The stack increase is nice as well. When I really get gathering, I find myself with two or three stacks of the same material cluttering my inventory, so this is a huge help! And because of the food changes, I always focus on increasing the amount I can eat in a fight first just to be safe in hardcore.
Also glad to see the gem drop rates increased. I love masterwork items, but I always seem to find very few gems in my playthroughs.
Looking forward to seeing what else you guys change in the coming days. Easily my favorite EA game since BG3
Does elemental infusion work as intended ? It make the weapon worse once applied… Like you lose half physical damage for some dot dmg but it’s not clear at all anyway.
Yeah I’m a little confused by that as well and would love some clarity on that decision. If max level is 30 shouldn’t the zones be 30 after the campaign as well for loot drops and challenge to be relevant?
EDIT: I understand the reasoning now. They wanted to always have areas that are a little under your power level so if you have a new build up you’re putting together from scratch at max level you have content that isn’t controller smashing hard to use it in. I get it, not entirely sure if I like it, but I get it.
You mentioned that increasing the stack size isn’t a real fix because inventory fills up due to the variety of items, not stack limits.
But the original commenter criticized 99 stacks as an “extreme” change. by that logic, adding more rows or changing the UI layout would be far more drastic.
I actually think your suggestion about adding rows is a good direction.
However, increasing the stack size was an essential and effective step.
If they only added rows without increasing the stack limit, the inventory would become even more of a mess.
Expanding visual inventory space should definitely be part of a future update, but raising stack limits was a necessary and immediate solution to reduce clutter and improve gameplay flow.
For the record they weren’t 30 before either, just 25 IIRC (still should have been 30 IMO). Now they are just utterly meaningless (including maxed pestilience with corruptions in the earliest ones).
Is it possible to extend the stiffness time of the charged attack of two-handed weapons? always counterattacked by the enemy before the afterswing of the attack is completed, like an old man
The thing is, 99 is pointless number. For consumables I’m all for it, but there is realistically no way someone will collect 99 woods, ore, herbs or anything else. The #1 reason I head back to town is because my gear tab is full, those do not stack. So making these 99 is a ghost bandaid for a problem that doesn’t truly exist. People will still fill out their Gear tabs and complain they have to go back to town.
I’ve absolutely run out of material space before my gear inventory. They recently increased the amount of material you can find in the Breach update. By the time I do a full loop around the available zones before fighting the first boss outside Sacrament on my hardcore playthroughs, I usually have 2-3 stacks of things like herbs, mushrooms, wood, ore. I can always sell gear to Fillmore before he goes to Sacrament, but I’m always hoarding materials to rebuild the town ASAP.
So I definitely appreciate the change, it will help me out a lot when I inevitably die again this hardcore playthrough. (Currently 19 and just reached the Lowlands!)
I fill my materials and food tab way faster than gear. Today’s hotfix was a godsend.
Maybe you were getting lucky with gear drops. Before Hotfix 3, I could clear an entire area and not fill up my gear inventory tab. Hell, I could complete a full Crucible run thrice and still have space in my gear inventory as well.
Now with the increased gear drop rates I’m noticing after hotfix, it may be the case that gear tab may fill out. That’s OK, better than the gear starvation I was seeing earlier.
Hopefully in the future they let us salvage gear for materials.
Salvaging gear would be sick! Sometimes you don’t need cash, you just need materials. Perhaps it could be a smithy feature? Or perhaps Grinnich could salvage stuff for us? Feels like he could use a new feature
Loving the update, really appreciate all the work you guys have been putting in!
The stack increase helps a ton. I’ve always enjoyed grinding materials here not only is it relaxing, but it also helps me prep for the next area.
I’ve lost count of how many times my inventory was full from running multiple realms to farm and gather everything.
Also, huge thanks for the gem drop chance boost! I’ve always wanted to try out the Masterwork equipment, but getting the required gems used to feel nearly impossible.
Looks who is living in a bubble lets just focus on the game, and not try to backseat develop here.
You can have your opinion, but having one doesn’t mean you are right or wrong.
The game is in EA so lets wait.
There is skilled involved in playing this game, no doubt about that.
The player vs AI compared to player vs player smells like confirmation bias, but hey I heard they are also adding pvp… issue fixed.
Fallen embers nerf kind of weird since its tied to very important and useful mechanic, tho i also can see why, at the end of campaign i had around 80 fallen embers so maybe it could have some tunning, but maybe consider increasing amount you can buy from vendors at this point.
Increasing max stack of items is amazing, maybe a little extreme i thought maybe you could just add 10 more empty base spaces in inventory by default, usually i had a problem during campaign that i needed like 3-4 more spaces in every tab and it would decreases amount of time i need to go home by 2-3 times already, but your changes just makes it so i dont need to go home at all at this point other than stash useful equipment.
Surprised there were no changes for pestilence requiring to kill almost all enemies in the zone, Im just simply dont touch big zones such as Nameless pass because its just takes too long too summon boss here.
Anyway, great job, awesome to see this game being improved game!
lets just focus on the game, and not try to backseat develop here.