The Black Pearl Is Too Strong

Wicked Feedback
1

the low-life bonus you get from the black pearl gem is so strong it completely invalidates the “trade-off” of having lower HP. you can still stack HP to have decent HP and the damage bonus you get by multiplying all your stats x2 offsets it massively.

you also get “free” plagued gear, because you can use the “downside” to put yourself in permanently low hp. plagued gear should carry a downside, not turn it into an upside.

the mechanic means that the optimal play is using black pearl gems for any build - which is boring : )

multiplier gems in general are the status quo - they’re not necessary, but if you’re optimising, they are the best.

essentially having an obviously better option turns the choice into an illusion.

i suggest changing “low life status” from <50% of maximum total HP, into <50% of maximum available HP. that way the black pearl still activates when you’re actually low on hp and you start to hit like a train. but you don’t get to roll with constant 2x multiplied stats.

i welcome contrary opinions because to me this seems completely one-sided

p.s. this game is awesome

4 Likes
2

I agree, it is a non-choice. Many enchantment-power gems are flawed: They turn disadvantage to strength, encourage playing in a one-sided way, and enable excessive, multiplicative strength, especially with durability enchants.

To play devil’s advocate, perhaps it is for a different type of player, or designed as customisable difficulty.

Some players – of a type often found in Asian-style MMOs or in mobile games – may find enjoyment in what they perceive as earned power, and in the mindless mowing-down of enemies. I understand that ARPGs partially live from a sense of progression, and progression can mean previously challenging content becomes easy.

I refuse these gems (and other things: combining durability enchantments, willow ring, health-as-focus, the lacquered bow). I can refuse them and the game remains very playable, even on Unspoken. In a way, choosing not to partake is not very different to choosing to play on Torn.

These are weak arguments since I want to play the optimisation game too rather than fight with two hands and one leg tied behind my back, and with PvP and co-op, I do feel that the mere existence of overpowered options affects me negatively. I would also claim (without evidence) that the existence of these options will inevitably warp balance and encourage challenges that are numerically inflated to compensate.

Maybe this is why, to me, the initial path to Sacrament still feels like the best part of the game in terms of challenge. I think of it as the Undead Burg of Wicked.

It’s easier for us to point at a problem than to design a solution. Yours might work but just means one would avoid regen and lifesteal, deliberately Channel down to 49%, and then go to town. It’s still mostly permanent.

Maybe the bonus could be temporary whenever you fall below half health (or ‘a bonus’, since I don’t think multiplicatively strengthening existing enchantments is a bounded balance approach). I’m sure it could still be gamed (regen and self-damage, for instance).

3

what if the gems changed the way you play instead of multiplying existing stats ?

like if you drop to <50% HP you get a short burst of mad speed, or mad damage, or mad resists, with a cooldown

or if you drop to <50% HP you can’t be staggered for X secondsa, with a cooldown

other gems could reduce the cost of your next rune by 100% if a different condition is met

and increase the cost by 50% if it isn’t

i know these are cheap ideas but that kind of line of thinking is more fun than just “more number” IMO

p.s. i know what you mean, i also love the entry run, and play w/o multiplier gems or leg rings. i do play with dura resist on cloth because otherwise the fast builds die all every time a mob looks at you funny

2 Likes
4

If only this game had VR support :grin:

Just ignore this message..

5

  1. yes it’s too strong, but that’s just the number being too high.

  2. I’m more annoyed by hard thresholds for effects like this. it causes stupid situations where because it doesn’t ACTIVATE BEFORE you’re BELOW 50% - that means if you have damage reduction tied to it, if you’re at 51% health, and you get hit, you can get killed, where if you’re at 49% you’ll survive.

it’s just unintuitive and isn’t really something you can PLAY around. you HAVE TO build around it, though. this is why they should always be gradients.

But yeah, it can make the damage reduction durability build give you more survivabilty below half health than above it, which is goofy strong.

6

Those gems need to go away. Like also a problem with affixes, % damage and % effect increase scalars on gems need to be deleted and replaced by fixed number effects that don’t have runaway multiplicative scaling issues.

Anytime you can stack %’s on gear, it will break balance. Unless you introduce hardcaps, but those need to be clearly communicated to players and they usually feel terrible because then you get gear drops with dead stats that you need to waste embers changing to address the issue caused by the hardcap.

1 Like
7

Linear decay isn’t almost always a bigger issue, but ok.

EG 100% more damage isn’t as big of an issue as 100% dodge chance.

8

Most games in the ARPG/soulslike genre do not include trivial access to 100% dodge chance. Many ARPGs do include 100% damage scalars.

Which includes this game. So the next worst case scenario in the one that actually exists in this game, not the hypothetical 100% dodge chance that designers have not shown any inclination of implementing in the game.

Even if it were in the game, the evaluation for what’s worse is still dependent on what you consider to be worse: screen clearing mobs but being vulnerable, or being invulnerable but not screen clearing mobs.

It has been stated pretty clearly that a core design approach of this game is avoiding screen clearing, so damage scalars that can be easily stacked to ridiculous amounts undermine that goal.

I also never said it was the biggest issue, so why are you acting like I said that?

9

i think both points are valid:

  • i expected the low life effects to work along a gradient, like the sword word of death. i was shocked when i found out it wasn’t

  • multiplicative bonuses scale everything way out of proportion. we have a fixed baseline to work from - weapon damage. i think using fix stats for bonuses is a much more sane approach. when i have time i’ll write down what i think a decent model might be

1 Like
10

I think that the problem is in how the -%max health/focus curse is implemented. It should actually reduce the max value you could get, not just adding another internal threshold. I think that struggling to keep a condition trigger could justify a reasonable bonus (for example the +75% for being at max focus instead of the basic +60% for elemental gems) but right now the max focus condition becomes impossible to trigger and the low health condition is always active (and it has that +100% bonus that is insane). I agree that the percentages could be lowered though, maybe halved?