[Suggestion] Alter some of the Miracle bonuses to better suit the Class referenced in their names.

[vague rain]

The best example of this that I can think of off the top of my head is the Assassin Miracle. It grants extra critical hit, but decreases Critical Damage. Assassins focus on singular strikes of high damage, I think changing it to bonus Critical Chance and Damage at the cost of Attack Speed would be a decent change.

[glossy needle]

It seems that each of us—you, me, and the programmer (named Assassin)—has a different image of what an assassin should be. I'll ask others for their opinions and if there's a more suitable option, we'll change it and consider adding the miracle option you mentioned.

[vague rain]

I mean, Assassin was just one example. Though I'm glad to hear there's some differing ideas on the subject.

I'd be curious to hear the impression of the Assassin that each individual has. 🙂 I love having discussions like that.

[glossy needle]

The programmer thinks that "Assassin" suits a name related to critical hits. I, on the other hand, associate an assassin with agility (attack speed, movement speed) and weak armor (increased damage taken)😄

[vague rain]

The Astrologer Miracle grants progressive bonuses that change based on the level of the player or the number of Planet items the player has (Not super Clear on this), couldn't the Assassin Miracle and others be tuned to suit both ideas with sufficient investment in either the associated items or player level? That could be a good solution for the Item Category dilemma as well. Link the items into groups that grant bonuses to various sets based on the Miracle chosen. Make the Miracle Roots a more integral feature of the run, playing off the destiny/fate altering tree idea, and give them a static location within the run. A mandatory feature of the middle of the first floor, for example.

Building on that idea, what if they worked like the Anvil Node? Each time the player finds one, they could grant an upgraded boon that gives more bonuses. The player could choose ways to progress that fate/class in a similar fashion to the upgrades to the player weapon.

Thoughts?

Building further, there's the issue players are having with the Money nodes. What if the shop were fixed at the midway room at the start of the woodlands area? Expand its inventory a fair bit, leave the rabbit and other merchant as random encounters, but don't dedicate a node to them at all. If players knew that the shop existed ahead of them and that the inventory of items it carried were pretty diverse, they'd likely give a thought to picking up a cache of money in one of the money nodes.

You could decrease the drop rate of currency from enemies, limiting coins to drop from Minibosses and Bosses only, in addition to their current tablet/artifact drop. [Increasing the amount dropped based on the overall health of the player or the number of hits taken would be a nice touch here.] Then players wouldn't have a ton of currency built up unless they take the time to invest in the money nodes. This would be especially true of Barter Builds as they'd be able to get more bang for their buck.

Actually, you could have the Barter build Associated Miracle [Merchant or something], grant bonuses that increase the likelihood of another merchant show up as a random encounter and increase the drop rate of coins from enemies.

[glossy needle]

The Astronomer Miracle affects only artifacts with the Planet tag, but the idea of a miracle whose values change based on player level is interesting.

Connecting it to a group of item miracles is similar to the Astronomer Miracle description, but I understand you might be suggesting more miracles like the Meteorologist Miracle (doubling the cloud count and disabling Blazing Field). Here are some examples:

Miracle A) - Increases attack speed proportional to maximum health. -> This miracle could provide bonuses to items with the Sturdy tag and other attack speed-related items.
I have considered similar ideas before. However, I am cautious about making anvils and miracles operate under the same mechanism. Currently, miracles and anvils can be chosen quickly without much thought, but this idea might make the decision-making process more complex.

This concern mainly applies to the demo version. In the full version, a run will involve four themes and four bosses. If each theme has three nodes, distributing them across 12 nodes might make your idea work well.

Another concern is that it may be difficult for players to switch to a different build mid-run. This could be addressed by adding upgraded fates/classes that encompass other builds.

Regarding the idea of fixed nodes for shops, I am still considering it. We are currently focusing on balancing the overall gameplay, as you mentioned. We are also working on increasing the variety of shops:

A vendor that sells only potions providing buffs or other effects.
A vendor with cheap items that are unidentified until purchased.
A vendor selling enchanted artifacts.
I aim for a system where shops present meaningful choices to the player, similar to Hades or Slay the Spire, though not fixed node types. If this approach doesn't work well, we may implement fixed node types.

In our previous game, Dungreed, shops appeared fixed in each theme. Since there was no node system, players had less to consider. For Sephiria, we want to balance it to encourage thoughtful decisions.

I don't quite understand the following part:
"In addition to their current tablet/artifact drop, increasing the amount dropped based on the overall health of the player or the number of hits taken would be a nice touch."

Does this mean that if the player has taken more damage previously, they would receive more coins when defeating mini-bosses or bosses?

[vague rain]

No, that if, during the boss fight they take fewer hits/have more health at the end, they get more currency as a reward.