Item Balance Suggestions

Hello all, I didn't see a thread for this so I guess I'll pioneer this treacherous land.

Item balance in roguelikes can be a touchy subject. Some people think it is perfect no matter what, and that getting really bad or good items is just part of the game. Other people think that items must always be balanced, with no 'unviable' items or overpowered. Fortunately, the world we live in is made of shades of gray and not all issues are black and white so I guess we can ignore this paragraph. >_>

Although for a most part I feel like all items are already pretty balanced (or at least they each have their own uses), there are a few that stand out in need of... tempering. I'm not saying the stuff I'm about to suggest NEEDS to happen, but I'd like to get some feedback from the community and maybe together we can come up with some fair changes.

1. Infusions - This item is both my most and least favorite. Getting this item early is like having an instant win delivered on a silver platter. 2 life per kill? ANY kill? SIGN ME UP! In my opinion, this item is probably the strongest defensive item, just barely ahead of the Shrooms. I know that if you pick up multiple copies each subsequent item will only add +1 life per kill, but I think that's where it should have started - the very first infusion you get should only add 1 life per kill, not 2. This item has been changed!

2. Shrooms - I think this item only needs a small nerf. I'll double check my numbers in a while, but if I remember correctly this items heals 6% of your life per second after a 2 second start-up delay. I think the heal rate should probably be brought down to 5%. I too have experienced the wonderful phenomenon of being able to kill creatures merely by standing still.

3. Plasma Tether - Item of choice when it comes to gibbing the hordes. Maybe the only reason I think this item is too strong is because I mostly play Commando, but wow if you are and you get this it's a massacre. I don't remember what % damage it does, but I think it could probably stand to lose 5-10%.

4. Lost Doll - I think we can all agree this is probably one of the worst 'Use' items in the game. Fortunately, there are a lot of different directions this item can take, so I won't take up space speculating. I'm sure the devs can think of something more useful, and I think there is actually a thread out there for this specific topic.

5. Unstable Watch - This is definitely one of the best 'Use' items. Freezes time for 10 seconds. This makes it the best escape item in the game, and definitely up there on the offensive side. This could probably use a small nerf of -2 or -3 seconds. I mean heck, the Invincibility Generator only last for 8 seconds and enemies can still chase you with that one! This item has also been nerfed!

6. Fruit - Another very weak 'Use' item, at least in my opinion. It needs either a significantly lower cooldown, or it needs to heal 75% or maybe even 100%. It's not really hard to get back from near-death to full with items like the Hit List, Massive Leech, or Shrooms, so I don't think 100% would be too much of a stretch for a 'Use' item.

7. Burning Witness - I'm not sure how I feel about this one yet. It seems... weak? Too broad? I'm not sure and I'd like to know what others think. Personally I thought there were already enough flame items (Boots + Gascan), and this one seems to be kind of lackluster. What would make me happiest is a completely new effect that better fits the theme of the item, but I hate to ask too much.

Ok, I had a lot more to say but I'm at work right now and I gotta hustle. I may have got some item names wrong or some stats messed up, but I'll try to correct them from home in a few hours. I'm really looking forward to hearing what others have to say on the topic of item balance, whether it be the items I mentioned or something else entirely. Please speak up, even if you don't have much to say!

Finally, as a note to any developer that might have made it through this wall of text: I love you guys so much. This game is amazing. It has filled a niche in my heart that I did not even know existed, which is the best kind of feeling. I fucking love this game and I cannot WAIT to see where it goes in the future. Please keep up the good work!

 

I'll offer feedback on some of the items. I could give better feedback and generally be better at the game if I knew what bonuses things got for having multiples of the same item. I'm assuming everything is linear (e.g. Mysterious Vial gives 1.2 life regen per second, so I assume having 3 would get me 3.6 per second).

The Good:
-Everything not on one of the below lists.

The Bad:
-Golden Gun: Too hard to get the damage bonus early on, too easy to get it later. The amount of gold required should depend on stage, because it's almost a waste of an item on the first couple of stages and free damage on later stages.

-Toxic Worm: Never seems to deal a noticeable amount of damage. Like Barbed Wire, except can only damage one enemy, but can do it from a distance after initial contact. Might be a good defense against teleporting enemies if you could get a bunch of them, but they seem to be somewhat rare.

-Prison Shackles: These never seem to make a noticeable difference. The enemies that are the main threats, such as teleporters and wisps, aren't particularly affected by them. It might be nicer if it slowed the enemy when it hit you instead of when you hit it. Also, the item log doesn't mention the duration of the debuff. I'm assuming it isn't permanent, otherwise you can discard this item's feedback.

-Infusion: A great item to get early on, though it caps out at 1500 HP. The reason this is on this list is because after the health is capped, these items have no worth and any additional that drop are a waste.

-Fireman's Boots: Usually it doesn't make a real difference in comparison with the Gasoline, which is capable of demolishing entire groups in a chain reaction. Might be quite powerful if you found a lot of them but, like the Toxic Worm, these are uncommon.

-Burning Witness: Doesn't seem to be particularly useful, except for a few seconds of increased speed after kills in case you haven't found a Goat Leg yet.

-The Hit List: Doesn't stick around on a particular enemy long enough to expect to kill it in time, meaning it's pretty much a random full heal that you can't count on.

-Foreign Fruit: Good if you have nothing else to use. For a use item, it should probably be a full heal.

-Disposable Missile Launcher, Instant Minefield: Good early, but don't put out enough damage later on. Usually can't manage to even kill a single enemy after a while.

The Ugly:
-Life Savings: Pitiful all around. Once you reached HAHAHAHA and no longer had to worry about time, you could possibly use this to get every reward from every stage, but who wants to wait around for that long of a time? I'd change this to give you some money at the start of a stage. Something like half the cost of that stage's small chest cost per Life Savings item you have.

-Skull Ring: One of the most overpowered items. With one of these, a bandit can stay cloaked practically forever. Cloak, pop a few shots, cloak, repeat. Commando, if his crit chance is high enough, can use suppressive fire forever. Possibly less useful on the melee characters. Should probably be changed to a percentage chance of reducing the cooldowns by one second on critical.

-Unstable Watch: The best use item hands down. The ultimate in offense and defense, allowing you to get away scot-free or lay a huge amount of damage without retaliation. It you have this, it renders Shield Generator, Safeguard Lantern, and likely Foreign Fruit obsolete. You'll be invincible longer than Shield Generator, safer and do more damage than Safeguard Lantern, and possibly be able to leech and regenerate more health than Foreign Fruit would have given you (especially if Bustling Fungus works during time stop).

The Unknown:
-Sprouting Egg: The order description for this says "Die 5 Times". If I remember correctly, it increases heal speed when out of combat. I don't know what the game considers out of combat and I don't know by how much it increases healing.

 

Sprouting egg is somewhat useful, especially if you have a lot of them. Out of combat means you haven't shot anything for 2-3 seconds I believe.

The extra 1500 HP from the Infusion, even if that's the cap, is still extremely useful. However early on, it does seem much too overpowered. Perhaps you gain life per boss kill equal to the amount you'd get for leveling up per infusion (eg if you have 2 infusion as a bandit, you'd get 34x2 more health per boss kill) and no max health limit. Because with infusion in its current state, it's too easy to get 1500 health and it's useless after that.

Another way to balance infusion is maybe instead of increasing life per kill for each one you get, it will increase the cap by another 1500 HP. But I like the life on boss kill more anyways.

I'd also like to see an item that increases EXP gain from enemies. We have, although rather useless later on, items that increase money gain, so why not EXP?

Which brings up another point: Money later on is too plentiful to begin with. Prices of things other than drones (which become useless after the first few levels anyways) seem to increase slowly, while money gain seems exponential.

 

I like the idea of having an Item that increases EXP gain, though it may unbalance levelling in a severe way.

Just for clarification: during an update, Infusion's cap was removed - it no longer has one, but in return only grants +1 life per kill per stack.

@Zadmeir on the note of the Skull Ring:
It is not useless for the melee classes, as the Miner benefits from a higher amount of invincibility time if his cooldowns are reduced and HAN-D is capable of becoming a wrecking ball if he can repeatedly Overclock and Hammersmash the shit out of everything around him.
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I've always found Panic Mines (the passives, not the Use Item) to be underpowered and never noticed any great benefits to having them, especially considering how often they drop.
Lens Maker's Glasses may be a teeny bit too overpowered, since it seems to raise crit chance significantly after having two or more, virtually giving you crit hits every 2 to 4 attacks.

I'd give more feedback on more items if it weren't 4 AM right now and my brain was still functioning as it should lol.