Discuss Balance Changes (and Arrows)

[SoulMuncher]

Discuss game balance changes

• Arrows
• Go over spells in #196 so we can close the PR

[jdoleary]

The question is how do we weigh "infinite range". Right now arrow is 10mana 10 damage and slash is 10mana 20 damage. Maybe we could bump arrow's damage up to 15? I know I don't want it at 20 because then slash would be obviously worse. IMO going through walls isn't as powerful as infinite line of sight range.

[SoulMuncher]

Opinion on Projectile vs Target behavior

• In early and mid game, the projectile behavior is a nice bonus and upgrade. It lets you reach far away targets without the need for targeting spells or increased cast range. You can line up multiple targeted enemies to dump a bunch of damage on the guy in front. Lots of good things. Net positive.
• In late and end game, the projectile behavior is a significant downside. It doesn't scale as well with targeting spells, because it doesn't guarantee that every (or even half of) the targets will get hit. If you have a bunch of ally summons in your way, the projectiles become far more harmful than beneficial. Maps get bigger, there's more walls, enemies, and urns you may not want to shoot, so it becomes difficult to get full value from the projectiles. It doesn't scale well at all. Net negative.
• Target Arrow allows any other spell to have the same projectile property when it wants it, and not when it doesn't

Real reason arrows suck

• Slash and Arrow both have a base mana cost of 10
• Slash does 20 damage, Arrow does 10 damage
• Half as efficient at first glance, but significantly worse than that in practice, considering mana ramp and things like that.

Comparison:

• Dealing 40 damage with slash costs a total of 25 mana, and leaves the spell with +1 usage for next turn
• Dealing 40 damage with arrow costs a total of 68 mana, and leaves the spell with +3 usage for next turn
• Dealing 200 damage with slash costs a total of 249 mana, and leaves the spell with +9 usage for next turn
• Dealing 200 damage with arrow costs a total of 647 mana, and leaves the spell with +19 usage for next turn
• (Where usage refers to mana ramp / turns to return to normal mana cost.)

And when this continues across multiple enemies and multiple turns throughout a level, arrow continues to increase in cost while slash stays at a maintainable level. The issue gets worse at higher enemy scaling, higher difficulties, more enemies, waves, and so on. Double damage is WAY more than double effectiveness in this game.

Community Feedback

There's been a lot of feedback mentioning how arrows are pretty weak. The only person that didn't say they were weak said they were "fine" which isn't the highest praise in the world lol 😅

• In 1.26.5 and 1.25, Arrow was picked less than half as often as slash, less often than rend despite rend being a higher rarity, and less often than heavy slash, despite it being a much higher rarity and having pre-req.
• In 1.25, Arrow 3 was chosen 96 times, while mega slash was chosen 260 times, despite being rarer, and not having a dedicated class to buff it.
• In recent versions, Target Arrow was picked more often than Arrow itself, despite being multiple rarities higher

Other Comments

• It's usually more important to deal with nearby enemies than far away ones, as they tend to do more damage and are more difficult to avoid. This makes arrow's range advantage kind've obsolete in most cases. This is one of the many reasons I advocated for making archers squishier and higher damage, while golems are tankier and have less damage.
• I like that arrow is low cost, low damage, and spammy, so I want to keep that "personality" if possible. It doesn't make sense to give it 20 base damage.
• Slash is a bit strong right now, so it might not be the fairest comparison, as practically all spells are going to fall short to slash. The issue could be a mix of slash needing a small nerf and arrows needing a small buff. Slash feels like a core/anchor/control spell in terms of balancing though, so I'm unsure.
• Maybe less scaling, but then that intrudes on the archer class.
• Maybe quicker access to better upgraded arrows with unique utility, such as pierce, explosion, shatter, etc. (Removal of arrow 2, basically? Shorter arrow progression tree?)

Summary

Arrows are generally kind've weak and need a buff, but we should try to keep their "personality" intact. Low damage, spammy, etc. Need to find a creative way to buff it.

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Edit: The personality I'm thinking of might be more related to the archer's 0 expense scaling, than to arrows directly, so take that point with a grain of salt. We do still want spells to feel fun and different though.

[jdoleary]

Wow great analysis. I like how you've identified the personality of arrows. I agree. I'd be worried about changing slash since a lot of the game is balanced around it as the core damage dealer. I'd be more open to buffing arrow. Maybe half the mana cost instead of changing damage?

[SoulMuncher]

Maybe half the mana cost

Hm... This seems like too big of a buff. Let's come up with a couple other ideas before implementing anything 🤔 I will do some more brainstorming after the big refactor and other high prio issues are solved.

[SoulMuncher]

I think this can wait for spell damage (#788) and runes (#778) Having a high range/low cost spell is going to become more valuable with these changes.

I'm still wondering if we should remove it from the "damage" options on the 3rd spell pick. Personally, I wouldn't want it disabled because that limits my ability to build into a specific playstyle early on, but at the same time, taking arrow/bolt as your first and only damage spell seems like a common pitfall for players in the early levels.

Note that Bolt (#793) is in a very similar situation and can be compared to slash in many of the same ways Arrow can. It trades a significant amount of damage for a change in targeting behavior. We should reference this issue when adjusting its balance.