Remove level cap

[ornate mortar]

Your not gonna tell me to think differently for an NPC in a videogame or even a person IRL. Whatever I see/hear is what my brain thinks. Either male or female

[frosty cape]

And for curiosity’s sake, if they said “actually I’m not a (girl/guy) I’m (this)” what do you do?

[ornate mortar]

One person transitioning from female to male told me he identifies a dude but his voice was obviously female. I respected that and I'm cool with it but I kept misgendering him just because of his voice

My brain automatically thought "girl" and it's hard to stop thinking that and turn it in my head to "boy"

It's just difficult for me

So if I hear a more feminine voice or masculine voice,in my head they'll be a boy or girl

[ornate mortar]

What is (this)?

Is it moon/moonself? Penguin/penguin self?

[frosty cape]

Blank placeholder to save me typing everything out but look how that worked out for me

[old linden]

what the hell is happening here

[ruby glacier]

It sounds like you're just making it more difficult for yourself by not really putting the effort no offense.

[old linden]

is somebody not accepting they/them pronouns again

[frosty cape]

We horribly derailed a thread is what happened

Yes, for ages now

[ornate mortar]

They're getting mad bc I think shamura in my head is a girl. Ik they're non binary but every time the conversation finally ends,one of them tags me and brings it all back up again

[old linden]

theres more than two genders, and they/them is normal english

[ornate mortar]

This was over hours,I mean HOURS ago

[old linden]

you dont have to discuss that for that long

[ornate mortar]

Yeah but my brain only sees 2.

And no I'm not trolling

[old linden]

i can understand that in some languages names ending with a refer to mainly female ppl

[old linden]

then it is time to rethink this

its not impossible

[frosty cape]

I want to apologize to the OP of the thread and people actually here to discuss the level cap for derailing it this badly, I was trying so hard not to but a couple days of holding my tongue finally wore me down. If it happens again, it at least won’t be me starting it, promise.

[old linden]

if gender matters to you that much that you have to categorize everyone into it then you should think about more generic questions

[ruby glacier]

"But they sound like a girl" and "but they sound like a boy" mindset is kind of what's making it so complicated to you.
Just think of a voice as a voice, there's no gender to the persons voice. The gender is part of the person themself.

[old linden]

i mean like do you select ppl for stuff based on their gender

[ornate mortar]

This was about levels it's not my fault you'll start talking about genders and non binary. Yes I know. But also I'm allowed to think that One NPC is male or female if i want

[old linden]

thats quite a good explanation

[old linden]

yea but then you shouldnt be mad abt being corrected

[wary creek]

catfish just goes
"catfish is catfish"
whenever someone asks for catfishs gender

[ornate mortar]

Again I'd love for MMlorna or any of the devs to come here and tell me my way of thinking is horrible

[ruby glacier]

that is so real of you Catfish

[old linden]

its like saying narinder is not a cat even tho they are

[ornate mortar]

Not mad at all. They stated what they wanted and I gave them my opinions. They didn't like my opinions and here we are

[frosty cape]

Your way of speaking is somewhat baffling catfish but honestly, pop off, you go

[frosty cape]

Buddy, you literally said “I don’t need to respect opinions”

You are so bad at accepting when you fumbled that it’s almost funny now

[ruby glacier]

I mean if that's how Catfish wants to identify / present themself then Catfish is Catfish

[frosty cape]

Real and based

[ornate mortar]

Your right,I don't. We're talking on the internet and I can think or say what I like. I'm not in north Korea or any other country with consequences to what I say or think

[frosty cape]

So what’s the issue with us also saying your opinion sucks?

[wary creek]

catfish speaks like dis because catfish just wants to.
a little silly, a tiny bit goofy.
but right now can we get back to the actual topic of this sugguestion?

[old linden]

i just mean its not that hard to accept using real normal english words for real ppl to respect them

[frosty cape]

You are a beacon of whimsy and light in this and you are right

[old linden]

yea sure tho this has already been discussed that much

idk at this point if the devs need more clarification on them doing a bad decision and how they solved it

[ornate mortar]

Now your cursing nice. But nah lol I honestly don't care because guess what? I'm gonna go to sleep tonight and a person's opinions or what they say isn't going to affect my life and derail everything

[frosty cape]

This reminds me I actually should double check the cursing rules here, I know some servers have them, hold on.
(Edit: ehhh maybe just to be safe, not sure what swears count as pg13 to people here)

[old linden]

||well i wish no nonbinary person will have to meet u until u reflect on that||

[ornate mortar]

Why hide that? You know everyone here will just press on it

[ruby glacier]

|| I'm non-binary and I already met this person here ||

[frosty cape]

Yeah I said something similar earlier and they just reacted confused, save the headache, it’s something they’ll have to come to on their own if they will

[old linden]

||same tho i meant irl||

[ornate mortar]

So are we going to keep going or no? Every time the conversation ends, it gets started back up like 4 to 6 hours later.

[nova briar]

morning

[ornate mortar]

I'm cool with talking about it though. I have all the time in the world so we can keep going.

[wary creek]

hi hayper

[ornate mortar]

Yo what's up man? Saw your mod that came out to uncap levels,good stuff!

[nova briar]

i just woke up and thank you

[ornate mortar]

Hell yeah! I use the save editor to just put my favorite followers at 500 but I remember what they were before so I can edit my save and put their levels back to what they were and level up normally again

My highest level follower was Shamura at 107. Everyone else was 71 and under. Thank you for putting it out. I just wanted to be able to level up my followers normally.

[ornate mortar]

You're actually the GOAT

[wary creek]

catfishs followers are lvl 140-160

[nova briar]

i made the save editor too

[ornate mortar]

I'm just happy I can level up again normally you don't know how much this means to me

[ornate mortar]

Man's legit said "nah screw yall I'm uncapping levels" 🤣🤣

I know I've already said it twice. But seriously man, thank you.

[nova briar]

np

[valid lark]

Oh there's a level uncapping mod? I may actually start playing the game again

[ornate mortar]

Yeah xhayper is the goat

Just downloaded it

[valid lark]

Do we have a link Zelda?

[frosty cobalt]

||🤝 ||
||not bringing the topic back up proper just. shaking hands||

[spice bear]

It's funny that you're using a murder drones PFP when there are many animators and people who work for Glitch who are other than those two only genders you believe in :/

[ornate mortar]

People can believe in whatever they want and I'm cool with that. I never said I had anything against it.

I never said there was anything wrong with it did I?

[frosty cobalt]

ngl this conversation is getting genuinely exhausting

can we please just drop it

[spice bear]

The fact that you cannot tolerate and use they/them for a character who canonically is non-binary is being against it by definition, thats- omg don't start with that fucking shit show

[ornate mortar]

Hey i'm not the one who started it back up

[spice bear]

You know what yeah this is over no more

[ornate mortar]

I knew it was going to happen but it's cool I have all night

[spice bear]

I already said its over dummy, just let it go, let's get back to the level thing

[ornate mortar]

Nah you can't talk and then end it when you want to

Let's keep going since you wanted to open your mouth

It's only 7:29 PM for me. I have until 7:29 AM the next morning.

Let's do it

[frosty cobalt]

ok now you're just getting hostile.

[ornate mortar]

I'm not getting hostile. He's the one who decided to open his mouth when it was over.

You don't get to open your mouth, say your 2 cents and then say oh yeah, "now let's just end it."

Nah

When did I ever say that there was anything wrong with people who identify as more than two genders?

Show me the text where I said that

[spice bear]

Well, were in the internet, you literally can not stop me :3 I'll just ignore you and continue on with the issue at hand cuz this isn't the place to talk about this, if you wanna continue bitching go to my DMs

[ornate mortar]

Let's do this

I got 12 hrs

[ornate mortar]

You don't like my opinions so you resort to cursing,nice

[ornate mortar]

Says the one who derailed the main topic to talk about gender. Yeah sure buddy

"I'm gonna talk to you and give you my 2 cents,then ignore you and tell you to go back to the main topic at hand"

🤣🤣🤣

[spice bear]

Anyways back to the level thing, I think that capping levels was a wrong move because even if we needed a cap, why such a low one? Ten is too easy to achieve anyways, like, I can get any follower up there in less than 5 in-game days, it isn't really a challenge and just eases things up if I'm being honest.

[frosty cape]

It gets especially easy when things like the boosted loyalty from hatched followers comes into play

[ornate mortar]

Is it horrible and an absurd way for me to think that biologically, there's only male and female and that's how I assign voices with potential XX or XY chromosomes?

If someone wants to identify as the moon or a giraffe, I'm cool with that.

I never said I had anything against it

If someone wants to identify as trigender(which I've seen) I'm cool with that

I never said I wasn't cool with it

[frosty cape]

Like I can see why the cap may have been implemented but its so weirdly low for no reason

[spice bear]

Omg stfu you're not making sense gender is a social construct sex is what you're referring which is also wrong because people can be born with two genitalia.

[frosty cape]

Bat stop feeding the troll

[spice bear]

Yeah, specially considering that with babies now its even easier to reach

[ornate mortar]

And yeah, I don't have to use they/them if I don't want too. Is shamura gonna insta kill me and delete my save if I don't?

[spice bear]

Because like if you take care of babies each day they get to like level 7 before becoming full length cultists

[ornate mortar]

Exactly nothing comes from it

[frosty cape]

Plus how many people tend to have loyalty enforcer passively raising loyalty, loyalty raising food, and now loyalty raising drinks too

[ornate mortar]

I'm still waiting for a COTL dev team or MMlorna to come in this chat or any chat and say that if I don't follow pronouns in a video game,I'm a horrible person

[ornate mortar]

I legit called it lol

[spice bear]

"passively" nah it's more of a passive aggressive thing if I'm being honest

[frosty cape]

Lmao that's a good point haha

[spice bear]

The other thing with level cap is the fact that getting disciples is too easy if you try enough, like, the bar should be higher.

[ornate mortar]

So do you dislike ppl with different viewpoints?

[frosty cobalt]

i can't make any more points on the level cap thing that i haven't already made but honestly i'm just all for toggles, toggles feel like a nice way to appease both sides
call me silly but idk it's like, if you want infinite health then you can toggle that on, and if you don't then you don't you don't toggle it on
cuz i can see the reason for a cap! but i also thing capless toggle in accessibility settings would be fun

[frosty cape]

Yeah that's actually probably the problem I've run into more so far tbh, like I can deal with the nerfed demons but for how big a deal disciples are supposed to be, getting them feels pretty easy after a certain point

[spice bear]

Like, I got Shamura literally today and they're already a disciple I'm literally one disciple away from the achievement 😭

[frosty cape]

Honestly if there's a toggle for infinite health I see no reason to not have a toggle for no level cap, because with a paean and hathor demon that's just infinite health but you have to work for it

[frosty cobalt]

exactly!!

[spice bear]

Honestly for the first disciple it is right, maybe the level requirement could go up as you get more disciples.

[frosty cape]

That would make a lot of sense, the first one was a challenge

But I literally had a follower I hatched and when they grew into an adult they were already level 9 or 10 so it was kind of laughable

[spice bear]

They're just really devoted to the cult, respect the grind.

[finite widget]

aye aye, like Kit said it'd be a safe way to appease both sides.

I personally use Infinite Health when trying to focus on getting a Boss run over {use infinite to keep all my silly hearts and stuff prepped for e.g. Kallamar and turn it off the moment before} so having a cap toggle would be pretty good considering how broken Babies can be.

Got one from 3 to bloody 7 by the time she was grown by having blind loyalty, so the toggle would make it feel less like I'm cheating the system I guess?

[spice bear]

Omg you're way too smart for this world how did I not think about that why didn't I try that

[frosty cape]

Yeah blind loyalty and tending every day is a bit busted

[spice bear]

Like fr, I'm crusading to get y'all food and y'all couldn't look out for the fucking baby while I'm out???

[finite widget]

really I just get severely wound up when I get a shit ton of hearts only to lose like 7 by the time I'm at the boss area, but thank you for the flattery because honestly the entire time I did it my brain was just "god everyone must think I'm so fucking cringe"

[spice bear]

But I mean they can't even take care of themselves

[nova briar]

@ornate mortar theres some unintended side effect if you chose to uncap follower

some stuff that rely on follower level can gwt out of control if they are really high level

like the sermon exp that you get

[spice bear]

Like before the patch where 30smt followers took forever to be ascended?

[nova briar]

probably

this is why follower level are capped

[empty vortex]

Popping in to say I'm also very unhappy with the level cap, not only because like one person said hatched followers get to lvl 10 VERY quickly, but also it feels like there's no reason to resurrect or extend the lifespan of followers anymore.

I understand if it's a balance issue, but I feel like there must be a better way to solve that issue.

[frosty cape]

Yeah I assume its a balance thing but still feels like an overcorrection, and I'm one of the people who actually wouldn't mind the cap for balance

[rugged ember]

I like the idea of making it a toggle. I can see myself trying a level-capped run to see if I can do it, but high level followers are the only way I beat the game when I first played it.

[dense crown]

I will say this... after making my new save.. the level cap isn't too bad.

However, a switch or making it upcapped after the Bishops/Post-Game is a must in my opinion.

Having a more "limited" experience while playing through the campaign with regards to levels, money, and productivity speed is better than I expected, but after the campaign is over, being able to work on my Followers as much as I want would give a much longer lifespan to my saves than what awaits when I finish my campaign.

Then again, I've also been hardcore relying on the Ritual of Fasting and Meat Farming to survive. So for whatever that is worth.

[valid lark]

Guys, where's the link to the Level Uncap it's not on nexus mods

oh there's another site

[atomic venture]

Oh hey! A mod commented! I feel blessed! And I agree with what you said. A toggle may be best in this scenario.

[nova briar]

i dont post my mod on nexusmods sorry

[summer quiver]

question, with the mod, does it let you level up disciples too?

[nova briar]

i dont think so...?

i need to dig into the game code

possibly today

if it restrict then i will unrestrict it

[normal kraken]

I didn't even use demons because I completely forgot about them before I beat the game. I was too busy dying in like one or two hits because my prideful ass played on extra hard.

[calm mason]

@nova briar which editor is yours, ?

[spice bear]

My prideful ahh on extra hard and golden fleece like mmmhhh yeah I think I can beat kallamar like this.

[calm mason]

I found a link to a webpage editor but no idea if it's deprecated - I can't find any documentation.

Actually the github link topright leads to a page with a thread and you're in it...

[nova briar]

show me

[calm mason]

https://cotl-save-editor.vercel.app/ top right button, goes to github and second post seems to be you

[nova briar]

thats mine

[calm mason]

Does it still work correctly?

[nova briar]

hold on

yeah

it just decrypt the save file and provide gui to edit it

they wont be changing the encryption algorithm any time soon

[calm mason]

OK. the other post I found must have been referring to a yet-older encryption, I guess - or just wrong.

[nova briar]

cotl used to have no encryption back in the day

and they also use xml instead of json back in the day

[nova briar]

can you send me the post

[calm mason]

Let me see if I can find it again..

[calm mason]

<https://old.reddit.com/r/CultOfTheLamb/comments/wo9t8g/cotlmindreader_a_savefile_encryptordecryptor_for/>```

I skimmed. Last post was what I read so I moved on.

No idea whose it is or when things changed, as referenced.

[brave trench]

I think it's the best possible compromise

I don't really understand the point of nerfing certain mechanics so much, which aren't that abused either and which don't distort the game, given that using it remains a choice. Especially as there are cheat options in the settings.

But even if you're going to have a level cap, it's true that leaving it solely for the story and removing it in the post-game would be a good idea. We've already got a necklace that makes you immortal, and the post-game really feels like a sandbox, so why limit that?

• I personally like keeping old followers because I get attached to them and it's a kind of worldbuilding in my cult, and I'm quite disappointed because this capping seems to me like a desire to push people to sacrifice, which I personally don't appreciate (especially as, as I've already said, we've got a necklace that makes you immortal that becomes pretty useless).

[heady goblet]

Is it still possible to make Disciples with the mod if they’re past level 10? Also just to check, are achievements still enabled? Thank you so much for the mod, the level cap’s killed my will to keep going after beating postgame :’D

[nova briar]

Probably yeah

i remove all condition that check for level

[heady goblet]

Thank you! :D So it’ll work regardless of level?

[nova briar]

yeah

[heady goblet]

And achievements are still enabled with mods, right?

[dim crown]

> yes they do

> mods shouldn't affect the achievements

[cosmic mortar]

as a disabled person i really prefer using demons as accessability than just BEING INVINCIBLE

so yklnow its like.. hardly a decent replacement

it removes Any challange

id rather there still be some challange than having it handed to me

handing someone a win is NOT the same as making a game accesssable

glad theeres a mod but. the dev team really should do it themselves

[night zenith]

infinite hp is just stupid

paean demon hp is at least earned

[cosmic mortar]

^^

[night zenith]

but one switch to turn on infinite hp is no fun

[cosmic mortar]

there are games where turning off death but not damage is genuinely really helpful (Control comes to mind, im terrible at shooters and at low health you can barely see and your running is practically a crawl. sometimes for really difficult sequences ill turn on invincibiliy since you kind of already have infinite ammo)

Cult of the lamb tjhough already HAD a built in option. Demons

it really doesnt need a switch, and it DEFINETLY doesnt need a nerf to the option that already worked

[autumn lake]

Hi all, thank you for contributing to this thread. I'm reading through all the feedback now and will take notes to discuss with the rest of the dev team.

Also, I realise the topic of pronouns has moved on now, but last thing about it - please do not bring it up again in this thread as it is derailing the conversation from the intended topic. I will be looking into what happened earlier. Identity is really important to us, and so is keeping this server inclusive and a safe environment for those who identify in any way they do. Gentle reminder, lets be respectful of others in the server ❤️

Thanks all!

[dim crown]

> this is a epic win guys

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/823265869449789444/1191600350982066197/F75se_AXAAAfrNv.jpg?ex=65a6074e&is=6593924e&hm=757d6425116d853f2bef15e33f84c7123c54941b8b72fa71b7ef5c2874776ebe&=&format=webp

[night zenith]

no more level cap

[dim crown]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/823265869449789444/1191599457662410782/GCEue24WIAEaimO.jpg?ex=65a60679&is=65939179&hm=f52551b0a0c73e9d34535e9e9e06d76dbf8c00290e6cd6a980b013993031fabc&=&format=webp

[brave trench]

...it's just a cat, but orange
You don't have to unlock it, it's a default form

[cosmic mortar]

tjank you i really like this game and would like to continue playing it

and would like to tell my friends to buy it

[wary creek]

Catfish would love to resume playing the game!

[atomic venture]

I just looked back. Epic win here! Thank you so much for looking into this, Rat!

And sorry for any tension regarding my view on preferring to have a official removal of the level cap over anything like a mod or use of a save editor. (Though it seems to be a serious enough subject that it came up anyway)

[vivid pine]

Many thanks to you. Based community manager moment

[autumn lake]

No problem! to be clear this isn't a guarantee of change but rather I see this is an issue a lot of you feel strongly about across many of our social media platforms, so I'll be discussing it with the rest of the dev team.

Thank you all for being such amazing community members and for letting us know your honest thoughts 🙏

[swift breach]

:D

thank you!

[wary creek]

:> catfish hopes

[brave trench]

I'm far too seriously prepared to make a multi-page pdf document to explain the usefulness of remove this level cap if they go ahead with the idea

[autumn lake]

There's no need as I have feedback from other places too, but appreciate that!

[lusty mauve]

I don't really see the point of removing the level cap if it's only going to affect numbers and not demon levels like it did earlier

Demon levels being too high was a balance issue, but now that that's limited, there's not really a gameplay benefit from surpassing the disciple level that I see?

[normal kraken]

Just let people power level demons, if they don't like them just don't use them

[lusty mauve]

What if I'm looking for very specific demon types and only have a few options?

[modest tulip]

eh maybe a cap on the heart demons is needed since it could crash games at high levels

[lusty mauve]

It was done for balancing purposes

[normal kraken]

I mean if they don't like how op they are

[lusty mauve]

That's not what I'm saying

[normal kraken]

???

[lusty mauve]

I would now be limited to only followers who meet that specific demon type and also aren't a high enough level

The level cap makes sense for balancing while still letting you have more follower options

So with all that in mind, the level cap no longer has a point to going above level 10 if it doesn't do anything besides changing a visual number

[normal kraken]

I'm confused. Isn't that how they always were? I just picked a follower that could become the demon I needed and power leveled them.

[lusty mauve]

Yes, but now you can only do it up to level 10 so it's not overpowered for crusades

You're saying just don't use the greater than level 10 ones then but then you're limited in how many followers have the demon type that you want, if there even are any now

And I don't get the point to removing the level cap after the demon balance update because what else did a higher level affect besides the demon mechanic?

Once you get a follower to level 10 now, you can make them a disciple. There would be no point in leveling them further.

[normal kraken]

Some people like op demons tho. I guess do the toggle mechanic like others suggested.

[lusty mauve]

There are accessibility options if you want the crusades to be easier

[normal kraken]

Ok but some people like making op demons

the game isnt hard to begin with

[lusty mauve]

Which makes the crusades easier, right?

[normal kraken]

Some people like investing that time into followers

[lusty mauve]

The issue was that of balance

[lusty mauve]

Then request that levels have a purpose beyond level 10, but removing the level cap if levels above 10 would currently do nothing besides changing the visual number wouldn't have a gameplay purpose

The demons becoming extremely overpowered was a balance issue

If you want the game to be easier in general, there are already options for that, but the demon thing specifically was a balance problem otherwise

[normal kraken]

nobody is asking the game to be easier

some people just like making highlevel demons for fun

[lusty mauve]

That's a side effect of the demons being higher levels though

[normal kraken]

Bro I don't know what to tell you

[lusty mauve]

A mechanic is disproportionately more powerful than it was intended to be compared to other crusade tools available

That's a balance issue

What you seem to be saying is that that's not an issue whereas I disagree

If the concern is that the game would be too hard without it, that's what accessibility options are for, but that's not a balance thing at that point

That's a general difficulty accessibility

[normal kraken]

and? most people usually get high level demons post game. and if they want to make high level demons then let them, if they dont then they dont have to do it

the game would not be to hard without it the game already isn't that hard

but the level cap limits alot of post game fun

that goes for demons too

[lusty mauve]

Do you understand that the demons getting to absurdly high levels made them significantly more powerful than intended, and in a way where they were disproportionately more powerful than any other tool you had available by comparison?

That's why that particular mechanic was nerfed

[normal kraken]

YES but most people LIKED that

if they didnt like how op they were then don't powerlevel them

[lusty mauve]

And since that was the only gameplay benefit to making followers level beyond level 10, there was no mechanical point to going past level 10 at that point, so they instead offered a disciple reward for people who max level their followers now

[lusty mauve]

So don't talk to your cult members? Or have them join church? Or feed them? Or give them gifts? Or do their quests?

They leveled up passively

You'd have to keep them in jail forever for them to never level up past level 10

So it's not just an optional thing for players who wanted better balance

That's why the cap exists now

[normal kraken]

Thats why people were suggesting a toggle for the level cap dude

[lusty mauve]

Now if you want there to be more to do with them beyond level 10, that's a fair feedback, but as it stands right now, removing the level cap would be pointless

[normal kraken]

so that you could turn it on and off

[lusty mauve]

But at that point, what is that accomplishing that a general change in difficulty isn't?

You're asking for the option for one very specific mechanic to be significantly overpowered compared to others in the game even though that's a balance issue with one specific mechanic in isolation

And that's design that the developers seemed to want to address

Bringing overpowered demons makes the crusades easier and in a disproportionate way that infinitely increases with more levels in a way that just doesn't happen with other tools available to you in-game

The weapons don't climb to infinite power

The cards don't climb infinitely in stats

There was no such limit for demons

That's a design issue

If the point of overpowered demons is to make the crusades much easier because that's fun, why only the demons and not the difficulty overall? Because if it's the latter, there already are options for that.

I wrote a ton, I know, so thanks to any developers who read my perspective

I'll read any responses from others but I think that's all I had to add on this topic

[normal kraken]

what most people including me have been trying to say is that they shouldn't take away the option to powerlevel demons
no one is complaining about the difficulty or anything, we just don't like having the option taken away, If you don't like how the demons are you could turn it off with the toggle. I don't get what you have a problem with.

[lusty mauve]

Why do you want the demons specifically to be infinitely more powerful than all the other tools available to you?

[normal kraken]

bro

people like to level them

[lusty mauve]

I know what you want; I'm asking why

[normal kraken]

people powerlevel them for fun

fun

thats the whole point

[lusty mauve]

I explained the design issues

You're focusing on one mechanic in isolation when your argument should probably instead be that there should be more stuff for theoretically higher levels to impact

[normal kraken]

you just explained why you don't like how it messes with the balance

you are focusing on the difficulty that with the suggestion could easily be changed or ignored

I respect your opinion but man

[lusty mauve]

Because if the only thing that higher levels would do is to make one specific dungeon mechanic infinitely more powerful than others the longer you keep leveling up, then there's not much of a reason in my opinion to not have a level cap

[normal kraken]

I have to step away for a bit

[wary creek]

catfish wants to just make a follower level 1000. thats all catfish wants

[lusty mauve]

Then argue for the cultist levels to do more things than only raise a demon's unrestricted impact, which is all they did beyond showing a different number

That's all the higher levels did earlier

I feel like the argument should be for some mechanical replacement rather than arguing for a major balance issue to return

[wary creek]

catfish isn't going for the demon aspect alone, they do work with everything quicker (except farming).

[burnt plover]

Which i loved

I loved having one high leveled follower just fill up my shrine so fast

[lusty mauve]

I'm not sure why the earlier discussion seemed to fixate on demons in crusades specifically then in that case

[burnt plover]

It was a blessing

I didn’t care about the demon aspect

Now i have infinite life and fervor, i can just steam roll crusades now without stress

[lusty mauve]

Alright, fair enough

I was responding to arguments that only seemed to look at demon levels in crusades

[burnt plover]

…then where did catfish say it was solely for the demons?

[lusty mauve]

Scroll further up; I was talking to @normal kraken for a really long time

I thought we were still on that discussion

[normal kraken]

We were fixated on the demon part but I also like the faster followers

[lusty mauve]

My mistake for misreading anything earlier

[burnt plover]

Apology accepted

[normal kraken]

And I stand by my point that high level demons are fun and can be ignored by people that don't like them

[raven flint]

It never seemed to work properly for me regardless, i could only ever get like 4.5 extra hearts with a lvl 30 nari

[lusty mauve]

Not in its previous form

Since you'd have to avoid leveling up cultists

[normal kraken]

Thats also what the level cap toggle suggestion was for

[zenith rivet]

I myself would like to have the option to be op, but not actually invincible.
I’d also like to be able to lock a followers level though, so I can choose exactly how op I wish to be

[normal kraken]

????

[wary creek]

catfish wants to create their own godmode beyond just one tick in the menu. catfish only has the dissention over the level cap. not entirely for demons, just on the followers

[lusty mauve]

I don't like bad balance in games, like how the give me gold ritual gave you thousands for instance, which was way too high

[normal kraken]

Also a good suggestion

[lusty mauve]

Should that have had an option?

Or is it better just to balance it

So that it's not easy to exploit and play the game in an unintended manner

[normal kraken]

I get the worry of having to many options but I think you are missing the point that a big part of the game is the fun factor

[zenith rivet]

Haven’t had the opportunity to try yet, but I heard that they overnerfed it

[normal kraken]

It's super nerfed

[lusty mauve]

That's a separate and fair discussion

[normal kraken]

mega nerfed even

[lusty mauve]

But I see demon levels as a similar thing

We don't need options for every single mechanic to be adjusted in isolation

[zenith rivet]

I mostly agree with catfish, or entirely agree depending on whether my broken brain is reading correctly

[lusty mauve]

Just general difficulty ones, I feel

Not making one ritual more powerful than another, or making one crusade mechanic disproportionately more powerful than another, and so on. You risk starting the micromanagement of numerous mechanics across the entire game and it gets too complex if there are too many options.

[normal kraken]

What I've been saying is that if you don't like high level demons just don't sacrifice high level followers.

[lusty mauve]

Which would require you to not level people up highly, so don't interact with them

[normal kraken]

you shouldn't take the option for post game powerleveling away from people because a few people don't like high level demons

[lusty mauve]

But what if I want a specific demon type but now no balance ones are available because they're all leveled too high because I interacted with them normally

[normal kraken]

Then make a new one idk

[lusty mauve]

You see the problem here right

[normal kraken]

dude\

[zenith rivet]

Which is why we should be able to lock or unlock levelling freely

[modest tulip]

how about in accesability settings you can turn off powerful demons

or turn them off

like level 10 would be the cap for normal demons

but powerful demons do whatever

[normal kraken]

thats what everyone else has been suggesting but they don't like that either

[lusty mauve]

This would be better to me rather than it being something in-game

But I don't get micromanaging crusade mechanics to an excessive degree

You have numerous tools available to you in crusades but why a god mode option specifically for that one in isolation?

[normal kraken]

we never said it had to be ingame

[modest tulip]

not many if you look at other rouguelites

[normal kraken]

i feel like im losing my mind here

[lusty mauve]

I wasn't done responding; see the next reply

[frosty cape]

For what it's worth Mello, I also was the kind of person who ended up with crazy high followers without really trying and then felt like I was cheating. My solution was to just stop using those followers/ritual of enrichment. It felt like a bummer but it definitely worked

[lusty mauve]

It seems weird to me to have an option for demon levels in isolation but not also weapons, cards, food benefits, relics, and so on

[zenith rivet]

It’s more satisfying than the current equivalent in accessibility

[lusty mauve]

Yeah, me too. And I don't like that some people said well just never bring them into crusades, because now I'm more limited for that mechanic and the followers who I bonded with most can't be brought into crusades without them being poorly balanced now. And if you scroll up, some replies didn't distinguish with a level cap option; one reply literally said to just recruit new followers and level them up but not too much and hope that they're the demon type you wanted too, and then I guess imprison them forever once they get to level 10 so that they never level again. Toggling wasn't always brought up with that.

[frosty cape]

Yeah that's the tricky part, like I never seem to have many people with the Hathor type, so my "just use a different one" option wasn't foolproof, but it was the best option for me

[lusty mauve]

There are 6 whole demon types and removing everyone who's above level 10 from the selection pool also means that there's a good chance there will be nobody who is level 10 and has a specific type now. So for the replies I got that didn't mention a toggle option, they basically said too bad even though I have less options now.

[frosty cape]

I think the thing people are the most pissed about is the fact that, if it was actually done for balance reasons, it should have been a toggle, because of the toggles added in accessibility

[lusty mauve]

I don't get the fixation on demon levels though since there are other things too; why be inconsistent

Add options for relic cards and weapons and the like too and whatnot

Or cult productivity and so on

[frosty cape]

Because its the most frequently used and obvious feature of follower levels, the productivity is less easily seen and quantified

[normal kraken]

We have to compromise somewhere, that's why everyone was suggesting the toggle. I get that you don't like having a million options but if they do go with that you may just have to deal with it. Im not saying that they will but still.

you almost seem to be suggesting an all or nothing with the demon thing

[burnt plover]

I, personally, really enjoyed having absurdly high leveled followers

My reasonings

1. They work stupidly fast which i genuinely enjoyed cause i absolutely despise grinding

2. i grow attached to the followers and it shows who are my favorites by the number alone

3. They were great for being demons, while some worry about balancing issues, I don’t have an issue with it cause I poured my free time into the follower to get them there, therefore it makes it even more rewarding and satisfying to just bulldoze through like godzilla with the speed of sonic the hedgehog

Suggestions to counter the issue that some players have with the balancing:

1. A toggle button to cap follower’s level! Simple enough, while still allowing for you to have high leveled followers.

2. Level cap with the option to choose the capped level! Letting us choose a specific number or by giving us a few options, say between 10, 20, 30, 50 and 100 which is 5 options! Better than none and still allows you to choose!

I agree that 10 is absurdly far too low, it really nerfs, well, everything!

1. The ritual of enrichment got nerfed to hell and back and I can barely feed anyone anymore meaning several things related to money is now out of realm of possibility to afford.

2. Slow devotion generation- with the new added cap of being over a 1000 to get any god tier in the end game, it’s quite difficult for me to get gold necklaces fast enough for when I want to indoctrinate and immortalize a specific follower or special ones.

3. Obviously the demons, those who really enjoyed getting op get severly punished for it which I find quite unfair, you grinded so hard for so long to get that one specific follower with the right demon effect and not to mention getting that much high leveled, it’s hours upon hours of gameplay that goes straight to the garbage for not a quite reasonable reason.

These are my points of view and opinion, feel free to comment and give your own opinion while being respectful!

[frosty cape]

These have nothing to do with follower level cap. The weapon caps are tied to the skill tree, the relics are non-scaling, and I'm still not sure what determines the chance of rare tarot cards but I'm 99%sure it isn't follower based

[lusty mauve]

My point was that there was a desire for basically a potential god mode with one crusade mechanic in isolation, since there was no level limit previously

[lusty mauve]

Thanks for the detailed writeup; I respect this perspective and the time you spent formatting this. Hope the developers read through this overall thread.

[frosty cape]

Because it was a tool/mechanic the game gave you that you had to work for, I think is the difference. The higher weapons you have to gradually work up the tree to get. Relics have a low spawn chance and the better ones need to be found or otherwise unlocked. Almost every tarot card except a couple starting ones needs to be unlocked.

[lusty mauve]

There is an eventual limit to weapons and relic cards though

The demon levels had no such limit

Hence the mechanic misbalances

[normal kraken]

Because people LIKED power leveling demons. especially late game when there wasn't a whole lot to do. taking away the option from everybody because a select few think it's a balance issue is neither fair nor fun to the people who put time and effort into it especially when we are suggesting ways where you could easily ignore it.

[old linden]

i 100% agree with all of this

[lusty mauve]

You said to just not bring those followers in anymore; that's not fair to me because now I can't bring my favorites in and also I become significantly more limited in who I can bring in while hoping that they're also at the exact level limit and having the demon power I wanted. Many of your replies didn't mention a level cap as an accessibility option, so I took offense because those replies ironically restricted my options.

[normal kraken]

thats what the toggle suggestion is for. I get that you don't like having a million difficulty toggles but thats honestly not a big deal when it means more people can enjoy the game.

[lusty mauve]

And your replies telling me to just not bring people in and then make brand-new cultists from scratch didn't include that

[normal kraken]

you are hyper focusing on a non issue. or at least one that's kinda been half solved.

read what I am saying

reread it please you are not getting it

[lusty mauve]

I did read what you said

[frosty cape]

Yes, you are correct. If you got very fortunate with relics you could go above the limit on weapons and curses, but I think it did still eventually cap out. It was mechanics that made sense. "Here is the limit, here is how to reach it, here is how to extend it, here is how to make the most of working within it" kind of thing.
Demons used to function like that. Levelling up followers took time. If you wanted REALLY high level ones you needed to pick specific doctrines and invest a lot of bones, or necklaces, which prevented you from giving them other necklaces. If you were willing to put in the effort for it you could get a much bigger reward out of it and some people found it fun to take that to the extreme.

I think the reason why they're upset now is the fact that that was taken away. The cap is easy to reach, after a certain point in the game its so easy to reach that people were actually getting locked out of other content because all their followers were maxed level. It makes a lot of people feel like there is no point to some very major other game mechanics. And plus, no one likes playing with a thing and then having it taken away, it just feels bad.

[lusty mauve]

Anyway, I'm more on board with a general level cap option than I was earlier now... I just got kind of passionate about some specific replies I was getting, sorry

[wary creek]

catfish doesn't want a cap, not a permanet one anyway

[normal kraken]

then how are you ignoring literally every thing I'm saying. I'm trying to be respectful as possible but you just don't seem to get it

[lusty mauve]

This is rude. I literally showed an example.

I kept replying to you as you wrote stuff

[frosty cape]

It's understandable you're kind of upset if it feels like the replies were just brushing you off, but please take a quick breather, it might help a little

[wary creek]

if acessibility is needed, it could be a sliding scale

[lusty mauve]

Anyway, I don't want to argue forever and I'm sorry to anyone else here who I unintentionally stressed out

[frosty cape]

You sound like you also could use just a quick breather, everyone is talking themselves in circles

[lusty mauve]

I kind of wish I could just delete all my messages in here but then it would make a lot of responses lose context

[frosty cape]

You're all okay

[normal kraken]

it's fine, I get were you are coming from but you have to take other peoples perspective into consideration

[normal kraken]

yeah I'm go leave and get something to eat I'll see you guys

[frosty cape]

It's all good this is how discussions happen, reminder to everyone to check your posture, get up and stretch if you haven't in a while, maybe have something to drink.

Actually, I need to apply that suggestion to myself because I think I'm dehydrated today and that's what's causing this headache, whoops. I give better advice than I get I think haha

[wary creek]

like
Level cap:
Inf lvls: (checkbox, if not on. the slider is accessable)
Max level (slider, 10 is minimum-??? for maximum)

[lusty mauve]

I was initially not seeing a good reason for removing the cap; I am now slightly more onboard with an accessibility option for a general level cap than when I started. Some replies I was getting and rude remarks bothered me more than that should have.

[frosty cape]

It happens sometimes, that's why threads like this exist, so everyone can exchange ideas

[lusty mauve]

The replies that didn't mention the option for instance and told me to just not level people up, which is a passive thing, or get new cultists for instance. I'll just chalk this up to communication errors though.

[frosty cape]

Yeah like it's harder than ever to just not level people up now, so I can understand the frustration

[lusty mauve]

There was a really long and well-formatted post in here somewhere that I would pin if I could since developers should see it

[frosty cape]

I think I know the one

[lusty mauve]

It argued pros and cons to both sides but then compromised with an accessibility option that I'm honestly fine with now

[burnt plover]

Personally, I really enjoy the infinite health/fervour toggle as I am easily overwhelmed with anxiety and stress when I get near dying, don’t get me wrong, i know it’s cheating for some people, but it’s an accessiblity toggle for a reason, to make the game more enjoyable for a wider audience. In short, it suits for different playing styles!

While I loved the high leveled followers, I never really liked using them as demons cause there’s no fast way of getting rid of the exhaustion. And it would’ve been absolutely lovely for me to have been able to level up my followers say to level 20 or 30 at least, would’ve personally made the game a ton more fun and enjoyable cause I would’ve had easy access to all kinds of stuff I enjoy.

I’m one of those people who can get quite exhausted from grinding easily and will eventually get burnout from it within A MONTH. This type of burnout for me can last several months or even YEARS. Which is not great for the longevity of the game, I really want to play CoTL weekly if not daily!

But removing the level cap really killed the longevity for me, meaning, i won’t be returning as often to playing the game cause i don’t want burnout from the game just because I have to grind for a ton of hours.

Let me give you my childhood example that most people know; pokemon.

As a kid I loved pokemon! Played it daily! But you know how pokemon (especially in the old days) is filled with a TON of grinding for exp? I got so exhausted from it to the point where I really no longer wanted to even remotely touch anything pokemon game related.

But one day on the dear nintendo ds days? I discovered the magic of “action replay” no more grinding. No more breeding for a shiny pokemon with perfect ability and stats with ev spreads. I could just cheat code my way into getting what I wanted.

And you wanna know how many hours i’ve poured into one freshly obtained copy of pokemon platinum with the action replay?

over 900 hours

It extended the longevity for me!

By hundreds of hours!

[frosty cape]

I have seen it brought up that the cap may have been partially motivated by performance issues, which would make sense with how switch can struggle sometimes, but even still. I play switch half the time and never ran into a crash related to the paean demon levels (apparently the culprit), though I did get a softlock that might have been caused by an overleveled vesta.

But even that would be fixed with a toggle or configurable cap

[lusty mauve]

My guess is it was rollover issues with damage output becoming too high

But then you'd just cap that internally

Pun not intended

When numbers get too high, they can roll over and that causes problems

[burnt plover]

In short, being op, for some, extends the longevity of the game

[lusty mauve]

I'm a software engineer so I know this

There are internal workarounds though

That's not the only possible error though

[frosty cape]

It was apparently to do with the max health causing crashes by getting too many spirit hearts from paean, and I know for a fact that if you have very very high level followers and sacrificed or ascended them, or did enrishment, the frames would chug a bit because of all the coins/particles it was trying to compute

[lusty mauve]

So there may be others depending on how the code is written and what language

[lusty mauve]

Ah, so that's a different problem; too much to visually load on the screen

That's less easy to internally fix without just capping it in terms of design

[wary creek]

catfish actually had a crash because of too many spirit hearts from sermons, then using the fathers tears relic.

[frosty cape]

But with the chugging frames thing, the fact that only happened in the cult base (and usually only in the temple) meant the actual impact the chuggin had was very minimal and limited to those specific cases

[wary creek]

catfish never dealt with a problematic paean

[lusty mauve]

One possible fix to that kind of an issue is to have newer icons for dropped items when a certain quantity is dropped at once

Like instead of ten gold pieces, one silver piece that's like a dime for instance

There's a lot of potential options

[frosty cape]

Oh! That's interesting then, that makes me think its specifically something with the temp red hearts, since the blessed tears turn blue hearts to spirit hearts

[lusty mauve]

Although number crunching done all around rather than for one area in isolation (to preserve balance) is how MMOs like Final Fantasy XIV usually do it for instance

[wary creek]

no catfish used the fathers tears, blue hearts -> X2 black hearts

[frosty cape]

Some of this was actually fixed pretty promptly by just limiting the amount of possible particles rendered iirc, such as with chugging from too much devotion

[burnt plover]

That’s actually a good option! I also read someone suggesting a bag of money instead for bigger doses of money

[frosty cape]

Oh my bad I got the tears mixed up, could have sworn the fathers were the blessed ones blue to red

[wary creek]

nope, thats mothers tears

[frosty cape]

It's been a while whoops

[wary creek]

catfish would like bigger numbers= less, but more stacked items.
you know the one gold statue that collects devotion. it could be like that with a lvl 40 follower just one pip that instafills the tower.

[lusty mauve]

You can have a high value for something while visually representing it with less physical items

[wary creek]

ye!

[lusty mauve]

If 100 pennies get dropped for instance, 10 dimes is less to process but worth the same

Anyway I'm starting to get away from the thread's base suggestion, my apologies

I'm fine now with an accessibility option; I'm not fine with the cap being removed at the cost of major balance issues if it's the only choice I get since I can't exactly avoid ever interacting with my followers or have them go to church and so on, since many things also passively level them up basically

[wary creek]

catfish would think it'd go
1 coin:
stack of coin: 5
pile of coins: 10
Small sack of coin: 25
Large sack of coin: 50
giant sack of coin: 100

[frosty cape]

But yeah if I'm thinking right, a big chunk of this was improved (not quite fixed but significantly improved) by just setting some kind of limit on animations for some things. Like if you ascended a follower that would have given you an absurdly large amount of devotion, you would still get all the devotion but it would only show the animation for receiving part of it. Or Enrichment I think eventually had the number of coins rendered per follower capped, but not the actual amount received.

[burnt plover]

Agreed!

[wary creek]

this!

[frosty cape]

This derailment was kind of my fault but the point was, even if the cap was performance motivated, there are other steps that could be taken to remedy it, and if they didn't work an accessibility toggle still would fix the problem, either capping the level or disabling certain animations

[lusty mauve]

It would be a combination of the accessibility option plus object consolidation, the latter either needing some objects to not appear but still be counted or newer objects designed

I did admittedly not think about the performance aspect much

[frosty cape]

Because as someone who played switch first and most for a long time, I will defend the switch players if the decision was partly performance motivated. Switch got MASSIVELY screwed over at release, so if the devs are overcorrecting to improve performance now I still appreciate the effort

[burnt plover]

That’s- that’s actually a really good idea, the option to disable animations-

[frosty cape]

A little confused but they got the spirit

[burnt plover]

Why didn’t i think of that-

[frosty cape]

My game used to chug really bad with the brainwashing, something about the filter it applied. That's why I thought of it

[burnt plover]

Same, especially the ritual of enrichment, my switch would severly lag

[wary creek]

for catfish it was sacrifice, so much devotion it'd take minutes

[burnt plover]

A accessibility option to turn off all animations would be lovely! On top of helping speedrunners too!

[frosty cape]

I probably think of it because 1) I play both pc and switch and see how much better pc runs, and 2) earlier in the thread people were blaming switch running badly for this change. It's probably not something everyone thinks about and it may not have even been a factor

[burnt plover]

Someone make a thread for that

[lusty mauve]

A lot of this is easier said than done of course in terms of development time and effort but they're good suggestions

We may want to break performance-related suggestions into a separate thread though

[frosty cape]

Oh I never even considered how much that would help speedrunners in some cases yeah, we've been gradually getting the ability to skip more animations

[burnt plover]

I’d rather wait a full year for a well made update than a rushed update

[lusty mauve]

This one seemed to be started with the design aspect of level caps rather than us thinking about the performance aspect

But I am thinking about that more now too

[frosty cape]

@lusty mauve I will if no one else has hold on

[lusty mauve]

Yeah, there's a risk of things getting rushed out too quickly without sufficient testing

Fix one thing, possibly break another

[burnt plover]

Like what happened with this update

[lusty mauve]

Software development is tricky

[burnt plover]

Like jesus

Please take your time

I’m willing to throw money too if it makes you take your time for your product to be perfect

[lusty mauve]

I mean they have also five or something simultaneous platforms to develop for at once with a small coding team

[normal kraken]

Alight I'm back. Hey Mello, I'm sorry for getting so heated earlier It just felt like you kind of missed the point of toggle suggestion at first. Anyways, you should know that your suggestions and opinions are valued here and I don't want to make it seem like they aren't.

[lusty mauve]

I'm sorry for misreading anything of yours

Got heated in the moment

[normal kraken]

It's cool

[lusty mauve]

I appreciate all perspectives here

And my own shifted some too now

I think a level cap option is a good idea

So that both sides win here

[burnt plover]

It’s smart to take some time to breath and get a hold of your emotions

Doesn’t make you any less weak for it uwu

[lusty mauve]

Unless of course they redesign the level system altogether but I don't know what that would entail and that's a much larger and longer solution so a cap option makes more sense to me in the near future

[empty vortex]

Hi, I'm gonna chime in here

[lusty mauve]

More accessibility options for now

Or gameplay options, whatever you want to call them personally

Just as long as it's ultimately in the options menu somewhere

[frosty cape]

Man I'm just going to say, I'm very glad this difused chill. It could have gone so much worse and in this very thread I have seen things get worse so just, thank you you two, you both seem rad

[lusty mauve]

You're super cool too

I really, really like this game

We all want what's best for its growth

[normal kraken]

You too

[burnt plover]

I think both a level cap option AND a disable all “cutscene” (like for rituals for example, no need to remove every single animations) would be the best of both worlds, more accesibility for both regular people, people who love being op, people like me who want to take it easy and speedrunners!

[frosty cape]

Also uh, if anyone wants it I made the animations thread, Short but I just wanted to get it up
https://discord.com/channels/353179320644141057/1199870410574008341

[burnt plover]

Everyone is cool 😎

[empty vortex]

I honestly skimmed past most of the argument here because it seemed like the two of you were just saying the same things over and over, but the reason I dislike the level cap is that it gives no reason to resurrect followers or extend their lifespans, and gives no real reason to keep followers around for long, especially since hatched followers reach level 10 very fast

[normal kraken]

The cutscene thing would be pretty cool. they can get annoying when doing alot of rituals and could probably help with crashes.

[empty vortex]

The levels before gave a sort of visible hierarchy within the cult, gave more personality and character

[stark heath]

Oh! There was a similar issue for BotW!! In the DLC you get a quest where you lose all your hearts, except 1/4 of a heart, if I remember correctly. The animation for losing these hearts, no matter how much you had, would last the same amount of time! It would just get rid of the hearts quicker, if you had more, but the total time losing hearts would always be the same.

[frosty cape]

Oh you were the one who mentioned that, I couldn't remember who but you had a good point so I tried to remember to bring it up when explaining why some people are upset

[empty vortex]

Omg 😳

[frosty cape]

That's so clever I actually never noticed that when I played. Makes sense though, since a lot of people probably had nearly 100% saved by the time it came out.
(also, god that quest was fun, highlight of that dlc)

[empty vortex]

But like, I loved that my spouses were all higher levels than the rest of my cult in my old file, because I gave them all skull necklaces and spoiled them....

[burnt plover]

Same!

In my first file i was progressively working towards making Narinder high leveled

He was around level 20-30 i believe before I had to restart because of bugs

[empty vortex]

RIP 😔 I married all of the Witnesses and I believe they got up to the 20s

[burnt plover]

My first follower who had perfect stats for both devotion and work on top of being easy to level up was my husband and near level 50

I really got lucky with him

Rip that save file and Amdusias

[stark heath]

Wish I could've had the chance to get over level 10. ||I played when the game came out on Switch, but then lost interest, didn't even beat Heket... Then learned about the egg update and since I bought the game on Steam w/ Don't Starve Together, I finally used the game and played it again.|| Only after the update did I even get to level 10. It sucks too, because I love the ideas people talk about, where the higher the level the higher attention you gave them, the more they meant to you. And with babies leveling up every time you interact with them, it's kinda ridiculous...

[normal kraken]

Now that there is a level cap I've been trying to make a perfect Immortal cult with the best traits. kind of hard though because I haven't been able to get golden eggs.

[burnt plover]

And it’s even more sad cause now cause devotion is much slower to get those god tiers for the gold skull necklace

[lusty mauve]

I resurrect followers who I like and don't want to see buried forever :(

I don't see them as just numbers

[empty vortex]

They're also more than just numbers to me, but it feels like they're just taking up space now

[lusty mauve]

Although having gold necklaces does make it easier to avoid the need for resurrection

I use it instead now mainly for damned followers since I don't like to lose anyone to things besides old age

The downside of gold necklaces though is that while cultists will live forever, they won't also work through the night like how I have ||Narinder|| wear a moon necklace

That's not a bad thing though

Just a weighing my options thing

[normal kraken]

That's true, I Have noticed it was slower.

[normal kraken]

That's exactly my thought process even down to the night necklace on narinder

[lusty mauve]

I think the main intended way to get god tears is through the purgatory mechanic, which also gives incentive for do more fleece and longer challenges; devotion is just one alternative but longer way

[modest tulip]

yeah most people use purgatory

[frosty cape]

That is intended design though, making you decide which is more important. It was a thing back when people were levelling up max demons too, since to get really high level ones you either needed to constantly revive them or have skull necklaces

[lusty mauve]

Right, and I said that right afterward

I like option-weighing mechanics in games

[frosty cape]

Oh so you did, my bad, I'm tired

[lusty mauve]

No worries; I've had a long day too

[ornate mortar]

The berserker and golden fleece are so good for boss rishes,that's how I got so many tears. I kept 2 shotting bosses or racking up damage numbers with both fleeces

Wayyy to good

[lusty mauve]

Gold fleece is nifty but it's also like playing on hard mode for me personally because of the double damage

[ornate mortar]

Plus you can use Sin to skip the cool down and go right back in again

[lusty mauve]

And they also capped the damage boost at 200% at some point, I thought

[ornate mortar]

Oh I didn't know hard mode gave you double damage

Or do you receive double damage?

[lusty mauve]

One of my friends didn't realize that when the game first came out for a while and was wondering why it was much harder

[lusty mauve]

No I mean that

[ornate mortar]

Ahhh okay

[lusty mauve]

The fleece itself feels like a hard mode

Since you take twice as much damage

It's a pretty significant tradeoff

[ornate mortar]

I've been playing on very hard mode and it doesn't feel like much of a challenge

I wish they had a merciless/veteran mode

[lusty mauve]

The fleece I used at launch was the one whose technical downside was losing everything when you died

But they changed that because I guess it seemed like too good of a deal

[ornate mortar]

I'm really hoping the dev team looks at this and makes a toggle for follower levels like they did with infinite fervor/health

[heady goblet]

Honestly, if unrelated, I feel like a toggle could even lead to some fun challenge runs! Like “How hard is it to keep your cult alive on Extra Hard mode with follower levels locked at one,” that kind of thing

[ornate mortar]

Oh damn that would be awesome!

I'd love to make the game harder for me

[night zenith]

permadeath penitence extra hard no levels

[heady goblet]

That would be like the ultimate challenge, I love it!

[night zenith]

thats gonna make the game extremely hard as well

sacrificing becomes kinda useless

[heady goblet]

Sacrificing barely gives you anything for the bone cost, bones would be harder to get since Missionaries would all have a high chance to fail (low level,) Ascending only raises faith, Enrichment barely gives any gold so it’d be a struggle to even get seeds to plant, and even crusades would be intense - not only with the struggles of Extra Hard and staying fed, but because your followers could starve before you get back

[night zenith]

and demons become very weak

[frosty cape]

Wait I think I misread nvm

[night zenith]

permadeath penitence extra hard no levels no farming no heavy attack

the deadliest challenge

[heady goblet]

Devotion would also be so hard to gain too, so it’d take ages before you could get anything like the kitchen

Would it even be possible with no doctrines too?

[night zenith]

permadeath penitence extra hard no heavy attack already sounds way too hard

heavy attacks are vital so removing them makes it extremely hard to survive

[heady goblet]

Oh god yeah, I didn’t even think of how hard the shield enemies would be

[night zenith]

killing bosses would take 39 decades without heavy attacks

[night zenith]

shielded enemies wont spawn if you dont have heavy attack

[frosty cape]

Yeah you can put off shielded enemies spawning by unlocking heavy attacks last

[heady goblet]

And with demons being super weak, the explosion ones wouldn’t do much damage at level 1, so you’d need to get incredible at dodging and good luck with Tarot cards, I feel like the Brainwashing ritual and the Fasting ritual would be vital

Oohh, I didn’t know that was how the shield enemies worked! That’s so interesting

[night zenith]

Pure Masochism Mode:

• Permadeath
• Penitence
• Extra Hard
• No Follower Levels
• No Demons
• No Heavy Attacks
• No Curses
• No Fleeces
• No Dodging
• No Doctrines

i highly doubt thats actually possible

[heady goblet]

WOW. I feel like some crazy Youtuber could do it tbh

[summer quiver]

they removed the cap n nerfed the % instead, from 10 to 5 per kill

[lusty mauve]

Excellent! I prefer that much more.

[night zenith]

no dodging and only having 2 hearts is gonna be painful

[lusty mauve]

Thanks for the heads-up on that

[frosty cape]

They're insanely hard to kill without the heavy attack so the game won't start spawning them if you don't have the required tool

[summer quiver]

they did that change the next patch after

since alot of people were not happy with that change

the cap that is

[heady goblet]

I hope they go with the toggle idea, maybe they could add an ingame popup warning if you set your max level for followers too low so nobody can do it by accident? (Like “your follower level cap is set at one, are you sure you want to continue? You can change this at any time” or something.)

I strongly dislike the cap personally, but I think giving options and tweaking it could make it a fun addition, both for people who want to make the game easier or harder :]

[thorny fossil]

Can't believe this devolved into nit picking about mis-pronouning a fictional eldrich God creature in a video game.

[ornate mortar]

Yep

Crazy

[lusty mauve]

It's not nitpicking when someone repeatedly posted transphobic remarks earlier in this thread about not respecting someone's gender identity; that's not okay for any reason and should be called out

[lusty mauve]

Remarks like this for instance

One of the characters in the game explicitly is referred to with they/them pronouns and then the person devolved the thread into why they refused to respect that and also comments about them misgendering transgender people on here and in real life as well, which they still don't seem to see the problem with going by newer replies

[ornate mortar]

I thought we weren't bringing this up again

[lusty mauve]

You brought it up again first

Don't be disingenuous please

[ornate mortar]

Nah Mephos did

Then you

So yeah I responded

[ornate mortar]

⬆️

[ornate mortar]

⬆️

[lusty mauve]

That goes for you as well then

Anyway, you brought it up before me

[ornate mortar]

I agreed that it was crazy how it devolved

[ornate mortar]

Nver started talking about it

[ornate mortar]

⬆️

[ornate mortar]

⬆️

[lusty mauve]

There was nothing crazy about people being bothered by it; what was crazy was you continuously making transphobic remarks and doubling down on them after others kept expressing their discomfort with you

And now you're just being disingenuous

[ornate mortar]

As long as your cool with bringing it back up again,I'm cool talking about it for 22 hours

[lusty mauve]

You made a comment about it first; please don't be disingenuous and act like you didn't

Bigotry is against the rules here anyhow

[ornate mortar]

All j said was "crazy" you went off and derailed from the topic

As long as your cool doing thay,we can talk about it for 22 hours

I just woke up I got all time

[lusty mauve]

You continuing to make transphobic remarks would not be a good idea if that's what you're implying

Definitely goes against guidelines on here

[ornate mortar]

Never said I would nice assumption

[lusty mauve]

Anyway, the topic did derail again, yes

[ornate mortar]

Again we can talk for 22 hrs I just woke up

[lusty mauve]

There was good discussion further above

[ornate mortar]

Or we can get back on topic

[lusty mauve]

You replied about it before I did

But yes, we should get back on topic

[ornate mortar]

"Crazy" and this⬆️ is different

You can talk about it but I cant?

Don't start this battle

I got 22 hrs and I'm full of energy

Either this or we get back on topic with levels

Pick your poison

[swift breach]

Guys we don’t have to worry about it anymore, Rat the Community Manager saw this thread and we’re all set- no need to stress.
And the other stuff is both off topic and not… getting anywhere imo

[ornate mortar]

Exactly

[swift breach]

Yay for Rat!

[ornate mortar]

Hell yeah!

[swift breach]

Now we wait

[ornate mortar]

I knew rat and the devs poke their heads around these suggestions so hopefully the level cap gets reversed

Or at least changed in some meaningful way

[swift breach]

Im interested to hear what the feedback outside of discord was

[ornate mortar]

Oh yeah that's true everybody must have been pissed

I feel like the lv.10 cap was just way to low also. When you
Hatch eggs,you gain one level every day until they become an adult. So that's what 6 to 7 levels by the time they are fully grown?

Being a disciple isn't enough

[normal kraken]

They don’t really do anything worthwhile tbh.

[ornate mortar]

That too

[normal kraken]

It’s cool in concept but very underwhelming in execution.

[ornate mortar]

Getting them to disciple feels like an unlocked halo cosmetic fir that follower,I don't see them do anything

And what's the point in them helping me with unruly cult members? One dissented and I watched them talk,tend to the farm,eat and bathe in the sun

[normal kraken]

Yeah they need to make it worth it, It would be cool to see quest related to it or something in the future. I still want the level toggle thing tho.

[ornate mortar]

I made them a meal to stop dissenting immediately but it's annoying to see them almost never do anything

[normal kraken]

Disciples could take care of the cult in your stead in someway when you are crusading

[ornate mortar]

Again it just feels like I unlocked a halo cosmetic piece for the follower,that's it

I would freaking love that

[ornate mortar]

I'd freaking like this so much

[normal kraken]

They would probably have to move the level for that up somewhat tho cus that could be op depending on how it’s implemented. They could make it so that they only do certain things each while also being less efficient than the lamb so you would need more of them.

[ornate mortar]

If anyone is trying to 100% COTL,you need 12 of them so that should be plenty for people

[normal kraken]

Yeah that sounds about right.

[ornate mortar]

Maybe at level 30 they become disciples? That sounds right. It took me a bit to get shamura to 30. I was constantly giving the purple spider gifts,using the confession booth,doing sermons,making them happy with a little dance etc

Literally everything to raise loyalty everyday and it still took a bit to reach 30

I feel like that's a good level for them to reach it at

[night zenith]

if they cap demon levels id still be angry as hell

[ornate mortar]

And like you said just make them more useful

[normal kraken]

Yeah thats probably a good level.

I feel like it’s one of those things that would need a lot of testing and balancing

[ornate mortar]

It can't stay at 10 since my babies level up once a day with a little headpat

[ornate mortar]

Definitely

[normal kraken]

I’ve been breeding all of my followers to have gullible and work speed related traits so they are pretty much level 10 after a day of being born. I can’t wait until the cap gets removed.

[ornate mortar]

Ayyye nice

I got bored so I edited my save and now Aym,Baal,All bishops,Narinder and Webber have the immortal trait and the don't starve trait

I can't level up anymore so I'm like"well what do I do for fun now?"

[normal kraken]

Leaving this here since it was an offshoot of this thread https://discord.com/channels/353179320644141057/1199977222820331590

[ornate mortar]

Nice

[final badger]

Wait we won

No more level cap

[normal kraken]

As in it’s already gone or as in they are working on it?

[lusty mauve]

They didn't say it was being removed yet?

They were looking at feedback and discussing among the development team still

[final badger]

But still it might rlly happen

[lusty mauve]

For instance, an option might be a wanted solution rather than one or the other

[lusty mauve]

You said "we won"

[final badger]

Fair

[lusty mauve]

We'll see what happens anyhow

I think some good ideas came out of earlier talks and that a level cap option seems like the best compromise

But the developers are talented people and might have a better idea in mind after enough review, so we'll see what happens

[pulsar jetty]

I really hope something is done for it. It was a fun part of the gameplay.

[buoyant summit]

no promises

[lusty mauve]

As long as there's not a trophy for it lol

[buoyant summit]

there better not lmao

[lusty mauve]

Because then I'll never get it :(

[buoyant summit]

saying this as someone who did a restricted no hit on narinder which was unfun

[lusty mauve]

Same energy as when Baldur's Gate 3 added a trophy for its newer honor mode

Well guess that's just 100% I'll never get unless I make myself miserable for dozens of hours trying to attempt that

[night zenith]

if theres a trophy for beating the game with all of these then id never be able to 100% the game again

[buoyant summit]

I've yet to do its variation

well 2

a dagger and blunderbuss one

[night zenith]

there should be a trophy for extra hard, permadeath, penitence, and all three at once tho

reason: 100%ing the game is too easy rn

[lusty mauve]

I kind of like that there technically aren't missable trophies

As far as I'm currently aware anyhow

[night zenith]

if i knew how to make a mod, id make a mod that makes the bishop fights way harder

[lusty mauve]

Anyway challenge trophies are fine

Just please for the love of God don't add a masochism ultra extreme hardcore one lol

[night zenith]

this as a trophy is no good

[buoyant summit]

i want the fun ones

not hard, just really odd interactions

[night zenith]

imo leshy is too easy

[lusty mauve]

Some of the no-hit trophies took me numerous attempts to do, each preceded by careful crusade preparation

Those were pretty tough

Not missable though thankfully

[night zenith]

i did no hit leshy by complete accident

[buoyant summit]

now no hit a purgatory run at the last node of a row

shame there's no max purgatory achievement but then again that's grinding

[lusty mauve]

Isn't that just using the heaven or hell cloak basically

[night zenith]

max purgatory is so grindy

[lusty mauve]

Ten times the damage but a -single- hit ruins everything

[night zenith]

getting just one purgatory fleece done is already really grindy

[lusty mauve]

You should get a physical trophy for that

Especially after the no-hit cloak rows

[buoyant summit]

yeah although patched now you could get extra hit points even with it

it's how i finished my berserker row slightly easier than just rolling with it

[dense crown]

I want, and at the same time don't want that achievement. Like you said, it's very very grindy >,<

[buoyant summit]

it's ass lmao

roughly 120 in game days at least

[dense crown]

I did it on my main save. THREE WEEKS

[buoyant summit]

that's not even assuming how long it takes to do because each one gets longer

[dense crown]

The Empowered Shrines were the only thing that kept me going towards the end

[buoyant summit]

never thought 20 minutes felt so long until i had a run go that far at the 6th node

[dense crown]

christ

[buoyant summit]

which is surprising given that i play isaac and my runs hit 30 at least lmao

[dense crown]

For me, the 3rd was always the worst. All four Bishops in a row, and there are precisely zero relics, heals, tarot, challenges, or rerolls on your weapons

If you get a Hammer, fuck you, you get a hammer

have fun against Kallimar

3rd node of Boss*

[buoyant summit]

on the bright side waiting for purgatory gets a little easier with the sin update

[dense crown]

Yes. Lord, I wish I could get that much sleep irl lmao

[autumn lake]

my bad for late message but just woke up - I just want to say that if the topic derails in the same way again, I'll be locking the thread - which I don't want to do as there is a lot of productive discussion happening 🙏

And yeah, it's not confirmed but I'll be discussing it alongside all other feedback from the update with the team.

[fallow cliff]

Thank you for taking this into consideration.

[nova briar]

yup

[nova briar]

there's one mod that disable achievement because it add too many stuff

[lusty mauve]

I feel like I'm one of the only people who actually likes the hammers because you can dodge before the animation finishes, so it's a high damage tool whose only downside is needing to plan the swings in advance

[atomic venture]

Still, thank you so much for doing this for us all.

[atomic venture]

wrong chat?

[lusty mauve]

I was replying to this

[autumn lake]

I like the hammer but it is tricky to use effectively hehe

[wary creek]

The hammer changes the rhythm of your play style.
Catfish is just happy this thread is now acknowledged

[frosty cobalt]

i hate the hammer =D

anyway

whoever was typin continue

[zenith lion]

...

[autumn lake]

I'm really sorry guys but I will be locking this thread now as this topic keeps coming up, and as per my last message where said this would be a result of that.

Myself and mods have already dealt with the issue, I'd like to ask we all move on from this topic entirely, including in the server generally as it is not productive and I have already spoken to those I needed to regarding it.