Slitherine

I know it's early days yet (but I'm still loving this game to death), but there seems to be certain imbalances when it comes to copper, in particular. Repairing/converting compartments takes an awful lot of copper, and copper is very rare to find at the moment. I find some maybe 1 in 3 or 4 missions. In my current game I am saving up to convert a compartment to allow four divers in a mission. I have 8 Cu, and the conversion requires 20. However, most craftable items also require copper, even medkits. I have run out of medkits, and I cannot afford to make more. The effectiveness of medkits do not reflect the resource cost, I feel. Perhaps if the Cu-requirement for certain items was removed, or a medkit contained 3 uses before being depleted, or if copper was more common, but at the moment I am not even considering crafting medkits - or flares, or most other things that require copper - until I've got my boat in order. And I suspect I will have completed the game or died trying before I get to that point.

Yep. The balancing of this game is way off. I unfortunately had to refund the game. I love the premise, but the extremely brutal difficulty and lack of resources/ resource cost to do many things was just way out of whack.

game balance is next on the list after any bugs fixing that are being posted, not that many either, so can't see that it will be long, first patch fixed and altered a lot, now for some player feedback on overall balance then another patch and update

game balance is always the hardest thing to do and nearly always the last, as when more are playing it, a greater understanding of what is and what isn't working well are known, so can be tweaked and altered to suit a player base and fixes deployed to suit feedback from players, which is what the developer seems to be doing now.

listening to player feedback and altering the game to suit.

I really love the atmosphere and overall design but I would have to agree as well that the game is currently way too unbalanced. It's not hard/fun at the moment, it's hard/un-fun.

FroBodine wrote: ↑Thu Nov 05, 2020 3:29 pm Yep. The balancing of this game is way off. I unfortunately had to refund the game. I love the premise, but the extremely brutal difficulty and lack of resources/ resource cost to do many things was just way out of whack.

I am sorry to hear that you found the game so difficult. Did you play on easy or narrative mode and still find it too hard?

This is good feedback for us.

FroBodine wrote: ↑Thu Nov 05, 2020 3:29 pm Yep. The balancing of this game is way off. I unfortunately had to refund the game. I love the premise, but the extremely brutal difficulty and lack of resources/ resource cost to do many things was just way out of whack.

A bit harsh? Sure, the balance is off at the moment, but at the time of your posting, there had only been one patch released. Also, I find the easy difficulty to be pretty enjoyable and challenging. And I'm the sort of person who usually chooses "normal" if I want a challenge in most games. When I play the old XCOM games (and Terror From the Deep especially), I can't help myself - I save-scum like crazy, even on the easiest difficulties. Not having tried anything above "easy" for this game, I do not feel that the difficulty itself needs much tweaking. But some resource requirements seem brutal for certain things, and copper is what I tend to have the least of at any given time.

I guess I'll restart on "easy" and see how it goes.

I'm having a lot more fun on easy! Plus I'm learning more about the game so I can, hopefully, up the difficulty later.

Kissaki wrote: ↑Fri Nov 06, 2020 5:30 pm

FroBodine wrote: ↑Thu Nov 05, 2020 3:29 pm Yep. The balancing of this game is way off. I unfortunately had to refund the game. I love the premise, but the extremely brutal difficulty and lack of resources/ resource cost to do many things was just way out of whack.

A bit harsh? Sure, the balance is off at the moment, but at the time of your posting, there had only been one patch released. Also, I find the easy difficulty to be pretty enjoyable and challenging. And I'm the sort of person who usually chooses "normal" if I want a challenge in most games. When I play the old XCOM games (and Terror From the Deep especially), I can't help myself - I save-scum like crazy, even on the easiest difficulties. Not having tried anything above "easy" for this game, I do not feel that the difficulty itself needs much tweaking. But some resource requirements seem brutal for certain things, and copper is what I tend to have the least of at any given time.

Harsh? I don't think I was harsh at all. The balance is off, you even said so yourself. Also - of course I was writing my opinion based on the what was released at the time. I cannot comment on patches that were released after I refunded, so your point about that makes no sense.

I am no pro at games by any means, but I feel that "Normal" difficulty should be just that - a difficulty level that normal level of players should be able to enjoy and beat. At the time I played the game, Normal difficulty was nowhere near "normal". It was brutally difficult, with resources so rare that you could barely get anything going. I don't think we should have to play on Easy mode unless we want a more casual game. That is generally what "Easy" difficulty means.

Anyway, I'm keeping an eye on the updates and we'll see. Perhaps I'll give it another try in the near future.

FroBodine wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 8:07 pm

Kissaki wrote: ↑Fri Nov 06, 2020 5:30 pm

FroBodine wrote: ↑Thu Nov 05, 2020 3:29 pm Yep. The balancing of this game is way off. I unfortunately had to refund the game. I love the premise, but the extremely brutal difficulty and lack of resources/ resource cost to do many things was just way out of whack.

A bit harsh? Sure, the balance is off at the moment, but at the time of your posting, there had only been one patch released. Also, I find the easy difficulty to be pretty enjoyable and challenging. And I'm the sort of person who usually chooses "normal" if I want a challenge in most games. When I play the old XCOM games (and Terror From the Deep especially), I can't help myself - I save-scum like crazy, even on the easiest difficulties. Not having tried anything above "easy" for this game, I do not feel that the difficulty itself needs much tweaking. But some resource requirements seem brutal for certain things, and copper is what I tend to have the least of at any given time.

Harsh? I don't think I was harsh at all. The balance is off, you even said so yourself. Also - of course I was writing my opinion based on the what was released at the time. I cannot comment on patches that were released after I refunded, so your point about that makes no sense.

I am no pro at games by any means, but I feel that "Normal" difficulty should be just that - a difficulty level that normal level of players should be able to enjoy and beat. At the time I played the game, Normal difficulty was nowhere near "normal". It was brutally difficult, with resources so rare that you could barely get anything going. I don't think we should have to play on Easy mode unless we want a more casual game. That is generally what "Easy" difficulty means.

Anyway, I'm keeping an eye on the updates and we'll see. Perhaps I'll give it another try in the near future.

Yes indeed, the balance seemed off. But I'm not going to demand a refund because of a balance issue. Balance issues can be fixed, and it is not unusual that games do get balance tweeks not long after release.

Ok, I just finished the story on easy. I then started an endless campaign on easy - but it's not easy. Already on my very first mission, with barely any equipment at all, I encounter everything possible to encounter. Those jellyfish, the exploding jellyfish, spineskulkers, murkfiends, two fathom seers so far, Soviet divers, and when I encountered that enhanced murkfiend, I quit. This was way too much for my rookie team to handle. With one harpoon among the three of them, there just was no chance. I'm going to try again, hoping this was just an anomaly, but this would have been the equivalent of one of the late missions in campaign.

Hey guys,

Improved balancing is indeed a continous process - we definitely hear the people who have found the game not fun because of the challenge level, but at the same time we don't want to take a kneejerk reaction and make dramatic changes that would hurt the enjoyment of those who are enjoying the current state of the game.

Specifically we are looking at the costs of crafting consumable items right now. I would expect some changes on that front with the next patch.