Feedback on 0.026 Damage and XP changes

Siralim 3 Gameplay and Balance
#1

There were significant changes to damage and XP mechanics in 0.026. After playing for a while with a saved game that it is playing through the Story, I wanted to provide some feedback. Obviously, these are just my personal opinions.

First, the XP changes are excellent. Prior to 0.026, leveling up a new creature really felt like a chore. In particular, it felt like the only reasonably efficient way to level up a new creature was to run realms with the auto-defeat enemy god-power (I forget what that item is called, maybe Heart of Darkness?). Now it feels like running higher level Realms is appropriately rewarding and new creatures reach a useful level in a reasonable amount of time. I really think the XP changes for low-level creatures were beneficial.

Second, I think the newest damage changes make one-shotting enemies a bit too common. Personally, I enjoyed the 0.023 era damage formula more than the current 0.026 era damage formula (One-shotting was possible in that iteration, but not particularly common). If you are gong to stay with something similar to 0.026, I would seriously consider either making Defense more powerful/impactful, or else just significantly increasing the health of everything in the game.

#2

My vote is to make defense stronger.
My quick Mana Bomb team (that I use for breeding fodder) can hit a creature for 1200 with 1000 defense. The creature with 700 defense gets hits for 1300. Defense just isn’t strong enough when 300 points of Defense makes little overall difference in damage taken.

I’d even argue for MORE defense types (maybe Physical, Magical, Skill) and strengthening them significantly to compensate for the split. Skill Defense could also resist debuffs. In this fashion, you can have a creature that’s strong physically, but goes down quickly to magic. Or one that’s resistant to skill damage like Mana Bomb, but is weak against Physical. Right now in the game, you have strong defenders, but they aren’t very strong, and they’re strong vs ALL damage types - except debuffs.

#3

Love the xp changes, I never encountered the damage cap so I have no opinion on the diff.

#4

Here’s a screenshot of Whirlwind hitting a bunch of the same troops.

https://imgur.com/KyaLpr7

Note the troop that’s taking 92 damage. It has a defense of 155 (which is base def for the creature, no modifications). It’s also why several of them are all taking 92 damage.
The troop that’s taking 87 damage has a defense of 224. It has +45% defense on it’s artifact.

This is my point - an increase of 45% defense decreased the damage it took by a mere 4%.

Now, Whirlwind does say it ignores 30% of the enemy’s defense.

So let’s try Snowstorm (cast from a different creature).
https://imgur.com/EmMABdV

The troop that was taking 92 is now taking 54. Still a defense of 155.
The troop was taking 87 is now taking 47. Still a defense of 224. Still 45% more defense.

That 45% defense is worth 13% damage reduction in this case.

Now… on to the finale! I shredded the middle bottom troop’s defense. It’s now 1.
You would think I would now be doing TONS more damage, because it no can defend. But you’d be wrong.

https://imgur.com/qQi2kFw - Spell cast. Ouch. A whole 10% more damage for having 1 Defense.
I would have cast another Snowstorm for further comparison, but I ran out of MP on the creature.

Either way, defense doesn’t do enough. I’m not sure what the calculations are, but taking a creature from full base defense to 1 should mean something. And a creature with +45% defense on it’s artifact should mean something too. Right now, it feels like it means very little.

#5

Chiming in to say I really liked the damage formula pre-0.026 as compared to the current changes. I felt more like I could get an idea of roughly how much damage to expect from my creatures when they would attack, and could plan out my strategy; right now, I’m dealing with a lot of frustratingly inconsistent damage rolls that I have no idea how to explain.

Obviously, there are a huge number of factors affecting the damage formula in Siralim 3 (Artifacts, Traits, blah…), but I felt much less confused with the earlier system.