Omen of many {weapon_type} vs. Weapon toggles

[foggy osprey]

I am finding that the weapon toggling feature is too powerful at baseline.
It allows the player to remove 11 out of the 23 weapons from the game (that's nearly half!) whilst still remaining in "Unbounded Mode".

The amount of power that this feature has is enormous on reducing overall game difficulty. The difference between an APOC 6 run with all weapons active vs a finite list of the most powerful for end-game builds is a world of difference.

If we compare the ability to completely remove weapons from showing up vs the omens that increase frequency it is really incomparable. The omens take up a valuable omen slot and the bump in rarity can also be a negative early game due to increased shop prices.

There are other issues with the feature, like newer players might disable certain weapons to their detriment. Maybe they never learned how momentum builds function and they think the scepter/pistol are bad items. This can negatively affect their gameplay. Despite balance issues existing on certain items, I feel that it makes the game more fun when forced to utilize all of them.

Possible changes:

• Make this a Boundless only mode feature. This seems like a great thing to have for unlocking meta progression but I believe it affects difficulty a bit too much.

• Lock the feature behind an appropriately priced omen (it's probably worth like 5+ points if I'm being honest).

• Omen of 'X' can additionally reduce shop prices of the chosen weapon type (but shouldn't affect selling prices of course).

• Omen of 'X' is changed to only affect one handed weapons, it now increase the likely hood of that weapon type appearing as an "off-hand" in the game (shop, rewards, production buildings).

[eager warren]

So I 100% agree that the feature could be over used, and looking into ways to encourage people to vary the weapons allowed was something we brought up a lot during the beta test.
I think that part of the issue is the lack of balance among some weapons, and how especially with some of the variants limiting to the minimum can make some builds far more common and strong than otherwise (mostly multi hit and hand crossbow) So some re balancing of existing weapons would go some way to help
I also think as players get better they can find more uses for more of the weapons, and so overly limiting your weapon choices can make it harder aside from the most broken combos, but the feature if over used would prevent a lot of people from exploring all the weapons.

[scarlet smelt]

i think this feature was added to counteract weapon pool dilution caused by metaprogression unlocks

[eager warren]

That has never been a huge concern? And there are already some things that counteract that (the shop has more slots as you unlock more weapons) And if you think that is a concern than you are agreeing with the premise that having fewer weapons unlocked makes the game easier, which is the issue this feedback was created to address?

[scarlet smelt]

not a huge concern for whom? the devs? it was at some point as they made the shop offer more items as you said
perhaps it wasn't a huge concern after that

[royal swan]

I would either:

• A) reduce bounded minimum to 3 weapons and boundless to 0
• B) Add a secondary bonus to Omen of Many [weapon], like a 10% discount for that weapon type or an additional slot in the shop with boosted odds for offhand, etc.

But that's on the value of the Omen of Many [weapon] itself

As for the value of weapon toggle, it's true that it's very strong, but 12 is a lot of weapons. Maybe you can make it 5 and each Omen of Many you take reduces the minimum by 1, but it's a fiddly solution

There was also a suggestion in the Beta that recommended picking unused weapons with some kind of reward.

[carmine junco]

I'm curious if they track metrics on what is blocked. IMO, its going to be like the same weapons, at least above 50% of the time. or at minimum orb and wand lol.

[eager warren]

People aren't gonna be banning wand, it's too good with multi hit and has a variant that gives +multihit. I suspect that 2H sword would be the least used weapon, but I don't think the devs are tracking anything

[carmine junco]

i banned wand and never looked back lol. Its ok i guess. useful following momentum builds or lots of hunters

2h sword for sure

[prisma gulch]

hand xbow really could use a 33% damage reduction and +1 multihit.

[eager warren]

This isn't the right place for weapon balance discussions

[prisma gulch]

Fun is hard to generalize. some people find unfun seeing weapons they dislike.

• The 1000ap achievements already push everyone into trying each weapon.
  When I was doing the last weapon achievements I used both thing - 4 weapon filter and omen of many xxx. I felt like the weapons of the omen shows twice as often as the other remaining weapon of the same type.

Then for an apoc 6 achievement I did a similar thing, but using omen of 1h xbow. In a sense the difference between an xbow with +2 multihit and no stat bonus is immense. And the omen of many weapon made those "normal" weapons versions not drop. (Same could be said about adamantine spears with +1/2 ap)

[bright juniper]

They don't they just force you playing something like an easy map using only that weapon(s) a couple times to get the max tiers

[eager warren]

some people do that, but the idea of the unlock is to reward and motivate players to use a variety of weapon during normal runs

[bright juniper]

They would really do motivate people if they knew that unlocking part 2 of the AP questline makes it so V0.9 of the weapons disappear

[eager warren]

the 1000 AP requirement does tell you that, and I think a lot of people probably get the 200AP one just by testing the weapons out before making any judgements about them

[bright juniper]

in the imaginary situation you use all weapons equally, and beat each map in 2 attempts, you most likely won't be having the 1k AP on some until the end of Elderlicht or mid Glintfein.

as an old timer to the game, I remember seeing someone posting the example of Pistol (this is an extreme): "Why should I get the AP2 quest done if it adds 2 more weapon variations I won't use, and the only one I want is the one with Momentum. it's already 1/4 to get it, it would make it into 1/5 to get it"

[eager warren]

We could have a whole feedback forum discussing the absolute lack of any balance in the weapon variants. But that's far beyond the scope of what this feedback forum was made for.

[bright juniper]

Now on the Weapon toggle part, I would like to see in Boundless version to have 0/0 so you don't get a general weapon type at all appearing

[bright juniper]

any variation that gives +hp & regen / +mana & regen are awful
that's the short version

[eager warren]

I agree. But probably better to discuss in its own feedback forum

[bright juniper]

I've also tried using Omen of Many X w/ the new Weapon Toggle feature, sorta. Mostly so the only weapons I get are always Uncommon.

I personally believe that even with the new addition to the gear being never common, the Omen of many is redundant when you can just toggle 20/23 weapons to not appear

[dreamy shadow]

It might be nice if Omen of Many could cause items to generate with more of a heroes highest relative stat. E.G if the hero has Omen of Many Orbs and high isolation on their existing gear, traits, and skill ups, then Orbs tend to spawn with more isolation as a bonus stat. This seems a fun way to make breakaway builds and perhaps not too difficult to code. It could also be hardcoded for the recommended stats on each weapon. I imagine this makes the Omen of Many more worthwhile for non-boundless runs, pairs well with the other omens that give stats, and helps players do what they really want with the weapon type of their choice: experience power creep.

[prisma gulch]

Heroes are generated with the same stats but only different weapons (with high weights towards omen of xxx weapon) and traits (the trait pool is different for each of the 3 classes/starter)