Monster Train

Monster Train

Unofficial Balance Patch
Rising_Dusk  [developer] 24 Feb, 2021 @ 4:26pm
(v1.0.7.0) Balance Discussion
I've been collecting a number of changes for a bit now rather than releasing them all piecemeal, but most importantly I wanted to reiterate some notes about my approach for this mod in the upcoming DLC.

The Last Divinity DLC Plan

This will be the final update prior to that major balance overhaul for the game barring critical bugs. I will be continuing to update this mod after the release of the DLC, and will be factoring the balance changes in the DLC into this mod.

Some of the changes in this balance mod have been incorporated wholesale into the DLC’s balance patch, which is very exciting! For those cases, I will be reverting the mod’s changes so that the base game and mod will be implemented the same way.

I will be attempting to make the mod compatible both with the DLC and non-DLC versions of the game, though depending on the implementation in the core game this may or may not be possible. Obviously, balance will be slightly different between the two in the base game due to the existence of new mechanics and cards, but I will not be maintaining two versions of this mod.
You’ll have to get the DLC to have the most balanced version of the mod.

Coldchannel Solgard

This champion path is extremely strong in the base game, and quickly overwhelms floating bosses. This change is a nerf in the sense that one revenge trigger does not inflict frostbite on the whole floor, but a counter buff to Solgard's survivability and damage output at ranks 2 and 3. This change overall flattens Solgard's performance (rather than it ranging from extremely bad to extremely good), which makes it easier to balance against the rest of the game.

Architect Penumbra

It was overperforming, plain and simple. Numerically, it would just get out of control a little too fast. In testing, just reducing the Rage gain slightly brings it to where it should be.

Awoken Hollow

After a lot of testing with the Cultivate keyword, I think the Cultivate behavior on this unit is neat and balanced just fine as it is in the base game. Because of that, I reverted my changes in this mod to the unit.

Thorned Hollow

Constantly falling behind compared to other Rejuvenate options, this unit saw a scaling buff to help justify its existence against the other Rejuvenate units. I'll be monitoring this closely to make sure it isn't overperforming, but I think it feels pretty potent right now.

Drain

This card was fine in some cases, but targeted Discard synergy gives it some interesting interactions that it didn't have otherwise. This also balances out Stygian's overall random/targeted Discard more thoroughly compared to the base game.

Ice Tornado

Another card made good by the changes in the base game, I evaluated it numerically with Permafrost and adopted that change into the mod. With that, this has been fully reverted to the base game implementation.

Lodestone Totem

This unit is too binary in the base game. You can play it and Incant and it will be too strong, or it is too expensive and it's not good. The changes presented here mean that it needs Quick to function as it used to, which lets me balance its cost down slightly to compensate. It's a good rebalance to help flatten the card's performance.

Offering Monument

This card is absolutely out of control in the base game, and with any competent player is an automatic win at C25. It needed to be changed to restrict it from easily going infinite while still having its draw-positive flavor. With a limit on how many cards it can draw per turn, this feels much more balanced overall and less of an automatic win.

Void Binding

It was mega overperforming at 0 Ember cost, so it was brought back to the base game implementation of 1 Ember. I also prevented you from casting it on enemies due to the bizarre interaction of Embedrain on enemies resulting in you still losing Ember (and because there's no functional value to playing it that way).

Devourer of Death

Believe it or not, it was overperforming at 15x scaling thanks to retaining Soul on death. With Endless and duplications it could get out of control too quickly. 10x scaling means it is still solid at backline management while requiring significantly more work to beat bosses or heavies.

Wickless Recruitment

Targeted enemy buff removal is in short supply, and this card really needed it to help it out on turns where there was no Burnout or debuffs to meaningfully remove on your own side.
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Showing 1-2 of 2 comments
KuponutLatte 25 Mar, 2021 @ 9:12am 
These are good, I like it. I love seeing Shard get used on units other than Solgard. Lodestone and Offering seem far more limited than before, but I'm curious to see how they will perform in this configuration.
Rising_Dusk  [developer] 25 Mar, 2021 @ 11:15am 
Glad you think so! Functionally, Lodestone Totem should be just as good as before, but it does actually want the Quick shop upgrade now. It's nice for it to not be nearly so binary, however, so I think overall that's an improvement.
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