After spending the last few weeks reading as much feedback as possible on the new update, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are two types of players when it comes to the feedback I was getting of “I’m bored, make the game harder!”
A) Players that were finding Diamond runs too easy and wanted a fun (but still attainable) new challenge to grind
B) Players that want the most overtuned difficulty that I could possibly muster up no matter how unfair it was
I made the mistake of trying to satisfy both groups with a single medal so I have made a bunch of changes in this patch to make the game more enjoyable for both groups of players.
Firstly, I have made a new completely optional (doesn’t affect medals or achievements) set of difficulty modifiers called Flex Modifiers. These are unlocked when reaching Diamond account rank and are purely for those players looking to create the most unfair situations possible in the game (group B as mentioned above).
Secondly, I have made a lot of changes for group A to make attaining the Prismatic medal FUN and not a tedious / frustrating grind which it clearly was for many players. There are also some nice QOL and balance changes that should round out particularly annoying edge cases or situations that felt like they depended too much on RNG to succeed.
HOTFIX #3 PATCH NOTES
Countdown and Manual Collection have been moved to be completely optional Flex modifiers. These two modifiers were by far the least fun modifiers reported in feedback and I totally get it- they both force a specific playstyle and add stressful elements to the game so they don’t belong in the core medal difficulty modifier pool.
Ultra Chaos red modifier now grants +50% chance to find higher rarity loot in chests
Lucky green modifier chance to find higher rarity loot in chests reduced from +250% to +200%
Discounted Shops green difficulty modifier discount increased from 30% to 35%
Added new green difficulty modifier: Loot Goblin: Start with the Bounty Hunter and Driller perks
Widened the infamous narrow arctic corridor island
Gold and Greed totem spawn chances increased by 50%
Scavenger health drop lifetime increased from 10 to 15 seconds
Enemy damage scaling per island reduced by 20%. Enemies were dealing noticeably too much damage when looping so this should help things feel a bit smoother
Enemy damage multiplier with the Ultra Chaos modifier active decreased from +33% to +25%
Enemy health scaling when looping reduced by roughly 15%
Enemy movement and attack speed bonus per loop reduced by 25%
Enemy bonus density when looping reduced by 25%
Hard enemies now drop 100% more crystals
Elite and boss enemies now drop 150% more crystals
Shop prices globally decreased by 12%
Shops now spawn 2 more pedestals by default
Shop Reroll Totem chance to explode reduced by 20%
When I say “cost” in the points below: each enemy in the game has a cost to spawn so if an enemy has a higher cost it will mean that fewer other enemies can spawn on that island if they get spawned
Elite and Boss enemies cost 20% more to spawn
Hard enemies cost 13% more to spawn
Athletic Enemies jump around 50% less. It was just too spammy in general which made using the Poison Cannon feel especially frustrating as enemies were constantly leaping out of the poison clouds
The Fiery Enemies and Poisonous Enemies challenge modifiers now give enemies roughly 50% fewer fire and poison stacks as these felt unreasonably strong compared to other challenge modifiers
Enemies that naturally leap a lot (like the Elite Lightning Crab) now leap 33% less
Elite Fire Crab is less likely to use his launch slam attack (especially back to back which was creating some unfair situations)
Elite Poison Grub has a limit of 1 alive at a time per island
Elite Beam Skull has a limit of 1 alive at a time per island to prevent taking unfair damage when multiple did their circular attacks at the same time
Elite Beam Skull shotgun beam attack damage reduced by 20%
Elite Barrel Skull now is a bit less spammy with barrels
Elite Barrel Skull barrel health reduced by 25%
Angered enemies now deal 50% more damage (down from 100% more damage)
Frenzied enemies now attack 50% faster (down from 100% faster)
Speedy enemies now move 100% faster (down from 150% faster)
The number of bonus enemies that spawn when you choose a 2x chest island has been reduced from +25% more enemies to +20% more enemies
Reduced the Rush blessing goal per player influence by 33%
Reduced the Relaxed green difficulty modifier cost from -10 to -6 so you can still earn some medals with it on
Reduced the Ultra Luck green difficulty modifier cost from -50 to -10 so that you can still earn some medals with it on
Removed the “damage when going out of bounds is doubled” part of the No Safety Net difficulty modifier (it can be found as part of the new optional “Handle With Care” flex difficulty modifier if you wanted to keep it enabled)
Chance totem success % increased from 25% to 33% but health cost increased from 10% to 15%
Gamble totem success % increased from 25% to 33% but cost increased from 10% to 15% of the price of a common pickup
Flamethrower base damage increased from 1 to 2 and weapon mod trigger roll multiplier increased by 15%
Big Shot speed reduction reduced from -50% to -40% to make it feel better in general
Removed the cooldown from the Shockwave perk entirely
Ability and Melee mods are 50% less likely to spawn in chests- this is because generally they are less sought after and could cause players to get frustrated over poor loot RNG when opening an Epic chest and seeing 3 ability mods appear. Since there are 50% less ability and melee mod slots available compared to weapon mod / perk slots this change should feel fine but I'll be keeping an eye on it! I'm planning on adding some kind of "Trinket" system in the future that will let players influence their chest loot a bit so players that like doing melee builds will be able to skew the odds in their favor!
Heavy Crab movement speed penalty reduced from -30% to -25% and gravity penalty halved so it should feel a lot less punishing
Immortal Snail now has a larger and purple health bar to more easily keep track of it next to groups of enemies
Some players mentioned that Horde islands were feeling a bit boring / autopilot since I nerfed per wave enemy health scaling so their initial starting health has been buffed to 50% of the normal value (up from 33% of the normal value)
Demolition nests no longer spawn 3 additional nests per player as instead of making it harder in multiplayer as intended, it made it far easier with most islands ending as soon as the first nest was destroyed. Now the same amount of nests spawn as in solo play but nests gain 100% more health per player in the lobby
Manual Collection crystal lifetime decreased from 12 to 8 seconds (since Manual Collection is now a completely optional Flex modifier I can restore it back to its former glory for those that enjoy this kind of playstyle)
The “Ultra Chaos Champion” challenge has been changed as there are no longer 14 red modifiers. The new challenge is: “Get a win with all red difficulty modifiers, no green difficulty modifiers and the Random Loadout flex difficulty modifier active”. This is the only achievement in the game involving flex modifiers but since all it does is randomize your loadout I felt it was still reasonable for most players to complete
Reduced the intensity of the lights when opening chests- especially on darker lighting scenarios this made opening chests a bit uncomfortable
Fixed XL Totems actually spawning 250% more enemies instead of 200% more enemies per use
Fixed locked difficulty modifiers staying enabled with no way to turn them off in cases where a multiplayer host had enabled modifiers that you hadn’t unlocked yet
Fixed High Roller random rolls not being accurate (it was rolling 33% twice instead of rolling a number once and checking that number at 33% and 66%)
As per popular demand I have removed the volcanic biome whistling song from the desert gameplay music playlist. It now only plays in the volcanic shop as Tony intended
HOTFIX #4 PATCH NOTES
After playing a bunch of runs on Hotfix #3 and observing feedback I’m happy with where things are at other than two things that were pushed too far into the easy category: shop prices and the Lucky modifier- these both made it possible to break the game in the first shop which made runs feel pointless and laughably easy super early on (for example I got level 9 Ultra Shot in my first shop and was able to comfortably melt through the rest of the run with no resistance from enemies).
I still want Prismatic to feel like an engaging and satisfying difficulty to overcome (it is the hardest medal in the game after all) so these tweaks are purely for that reason.
Keep in mind that the game is still drastically easier / less RNG based than before, all of the Hotfix #3 changes combined made a huge impact!
The -12% to shop prices change that was made in Hotfix #3 was actually a much larger decrease than it seemed as it affected exponential scaling and was the main cause of players being able to buy out shops and break the game in the first biome so it has been reverted. Since hard enemies drop way more crystals than before it was an unnecessary change, there is still a big net increase in economy compared to before even with this change reverted
Since the outliers that made the game feel too RNG based to succeed were significantly toned back in Hotfix #3, the Lucky and Discounted Shops modifiers became noticeably overpowered so they have been toned back to maintain the new more “flat” balance of the game (less need to counter the extreme difficulty spikes that are no longer present)
Lucky luck bonus reduced to +100% chance to find higher rarity loot in chests which is still probably the strongest green modifier in the game that is allowed on Prismatic runs
Discounted Shops shop discount reduced to 20% but it now only costs -1 difficulty level instead of -2
I hear you on the -50% chance for Ability and Melee mods to spawn in chests being too much so I have lowered it to just a -25% chance which should feel a lot more balanced while still enabling you to go for ability and melee builds
Added missing secret chest spawn point on one of the circular floating arctic islands
Added some more cliffs to the victory island to try and prevent cases where players were getting stuck while exploring and couldn’t get their victory crown