TL;DR - Demo is out, we received feedback and looked through it. Frog boss is getting nerfed substantially while we rework it, all other bosses also getting nerfed/adjusted, Unnatural Disaster and other hard encounters getting nerfed. ON the other hand, overall Corruption required per stage will ramp up.
Hello everyone!
The demo for THORNSPELL has been released, and we are really excited and hyped for all of the feedback received!
As always, when releasing something into the wild, there's positive feedback as well as concerns and constructive feedback shared with us that we really appreciate.
Most common feedback points have been:
First run is too easy.
Enemy bosses feel unfair a lot of the times, especially during the first run.
Certain cards are very strong, certain plant/relic/card combos are busted.
Certain game mechanics and effects are very punishing when encountered without the right tools to mitigate them.
Runs get a little too long sometimes if your build gets locked down early.
We playtest everything we design, but our perception is biased by how close we are to the game. Every piece of feedback sent (be it a video, Discord, the feedback form, etc) we review and dissect, as it helps us see where do we need to adjust or change what we've done.
The theme for the feedback received on the past days has been very clear: the game feels easy and, at the same time, the enemies feel unfair.
In this case, we believe unfairness comes from feeling you don't have the agency to use what you've built, and also, the enemies or effects still striking down your plants when a turn ends, even if you where going to win. We are making some early changes, that are part of a bigger design plan, to make the game more fun to play right now, while we address the issue properly.
Changes V.0.1.0.2
Act Length
Removed the 4th battle from each act. This means there's three less rewards total, as well as three less battles to get gold from, as well as tree less battles to grow the power of your garden. It also means you get to rearrange your relics a little bit in the shop before going into the Human boss battle of each act.
We're being very careful of adjusting Corruption levels per stage and have just done very minimal adjustments so the difficulty curve doesn't feel too steep in the early stages, but then also made the numbers higher on later stages.
Balance
These are early changes to make the game feel less punishing to play while we overhaul how certain mechanics work.
We hear that a lot of the times it feels unfun and punishing when you first encounter certain mechanics, and while we want the decision-making to be interesting, it is definitely unfair to have the game balanced around knowing you will all find loopholes that will make your builds really strong, as well as have enemies still destroy what you've built if you don't have stumbled across the tools needed to avoid it.
We are looking into creating worsening effects that are temporary rather than permanent, and changing Static Charge so it doesn't destroy but temporarily main your plants in a significant way. We know enemies that reposition things in your garden are also tough, and will do a proper pass on that later on as well. On the meanwhile, Selfish Presence will have it's own repositioning attack removed.
Soilshifter & Unnatural Disaster: Reduced the amount of times they reposition your plants on encounter start from the possible max 8, to max 3.
Unnatural Disaster: No longer applies Static Charge (temporary until we adjust how Static Charge works).
Smiley: No longer discards your cards when you harvest. Applies 1 Wildfire to a plant randomly when you use a card instead.
Your Majesty: No longer takes away your mana when harvesting. Applies 1 Drought to a plant randomly when you harvest instead. Worsen effect reduced from 10%(min. 5) to 5%(min. 5).
The Poisoner: removed Corruption generation when plants are worsened.
The Geneticist: removed Thornspell being added to center plants on turn start.
The Naturist: Forest Call now also draws an action card when used. Removed drawing an additional card on turn start. Static charge is now only applied to 4 plots instead of 8. (We considered removing Static Charge from here temporarily as well, but we believe Forest Call does a good job of mitigating its effects in this particular fight.)
Shrieking Greed: No longer poisons your plants.
Selfish Presence: No longer shuffles your plants when planting a new plant. Worsen effect reduced from 50%(min. 100) to 10%(min. 5)
Tyrannic Grasp: Instead of adding 25 Precious Gifts to your deck on Encounter Start, they add 2 on turn start. Drain when a card is exhausted has been removed. Discard when a card is exhausted has been removed. We will be prioritising doing a deeper rework on this boss, but we didn't want to leave this one on the wild as it is.