I'm loving this mod so far. It's in my top tier of character upgrade mods with Intrinsics -- I love options that let me have a powerful character, rather than just a character with powerful gear. I thought I'd drop by to share some observations and ideas. I'm just spitballing ideas and presenting them in no particular order here, take them as you will, or not:
Observations
- Combining the Ranged AIM ability with Projectile Penetration seems to result in a single shot expending its additional Penetration charges on its initial target before moving on -- in for example, if I have Projectile Penetrate 5, one arrow might hit a single target three times before moving on to its next one, effectively making it a smart damage multiplier. I'm not sure if this behavior is intentional, but since AIMed Jester Arrows don't match it, I'm guessing its down to the specifics of how you implemented the penetration. On one hand I like it, on the other hand it makes Ranged weapons disproportionately advantageous to upgrade compared with the other categories. I guess Thrown and Magic could probably keep pace if they had equivalent AIM abilities.
- The Movement upgrades are awesome, but feel like they scale up really quickly to the point of making it difficult not to slingshot yourself entire screen-widths at a time.
- Unfortunately, I'm not quite certain what sort of benefit the Wing Time upgrade is supposed to provide, but it doesn't seem to be doing it. At 150, my fly time and max height seem to be the same as they are at 0, with all other things being equal.
- Melee upgrade options are notably lackluster compared with any other types of upgrades -- understandably, to be fair. It doesn't have as many obvious options.
Ideas
- If it's feasible, incorporating an AIM option for thrown and magic categories would make them more competitive with the ranged category (perhaps even one for the projectiles deployed by melee weapons)
- Every weapon type could also benefit from a use speed upgrade, as well as a projectile speed upgrade
- I would love for Ranged and Thrown weapons to have an Ammo Efficiency upgrade -- each level providing 1% chance of not using ammo with that weapon type, for example.
- For Melee Weapons, abilities that mitigate the risks of melee combat would be great options to add -- a Weapon Size upgrade that lets you extend your reach, reduced contact damage after a successful melee attack, and scaling knockback resistance would all be good to have.
- Seconding the suggestion for UI upgrades -- currently the Question Mark doesn't seem to have any purpose since mousing over the upgrade at all displays the tooltip. Having Autoclicked my way up to an 800K bonus on XP Gained over the course of like a day of AFK grinding, being able to just hold the mouse button down would've been significantly easier. Also, it would be a huge quality of life boost to add a Min/Max button set to toggle your upgrades. It takes a long time to scale back down from a 10X Spawn Rate, and a lot of mobs spawn in that time!
- Maybe make the Question Mark button display a more detailed description of what an option does? Or express what its current value does?
- Again, if it's feasible, debuff resistance of some sort -- maybe a percent duration decrease, a percent chance at resisting altogether, or a periodic purge of x debuffs every y seconds
- Scalable Night Vision and Shine effects would be, well, brilliant.
- That goes double for a scalable damage reflection/thorns effect.
- Mount Speed and fly time upgrades would be super cool for keeping mounts and minecarts relevant. When I'm running on asphalt at 300 MPH, the 40 MPH unicorn and even the 100ish MPH Mechanical Minecart are both pretty silly.
- Alchemy bonuses -- percentage increase to the effects of buff potions, reduced potion sickness, extended buff duration
- Bartering bonuses -- better prices when buying/selling from/to NPCs.
The thing that I really love about this mod is the extent to which it lets you custom tailor your character's abilities to get exactly the level of challenge that you want out of the game. Out of curiosity, I binged enough XP Grinding to get Evasion up to 1, and then I AFKed a 100 Dungeon Guardian swarm to confirm that it actually was a 100% evasion rate. It still doesn't make you indestructible, but it was hilarious to be able to do. Thanks for putting this thing together!
All of this! Would love to see any number of these traits added to the mod!
That aside, I have a strange issue with this mod: The inability to turn off the added bonuses after having bought them without repercussions.
Explanation: I was in the middle of a playthrough that I had grinded pretty heavily at the beginning of, and was feeling pretty darn indestructible. Disappointingly so after a while. So I decided to dial down everything to the point before I started upgrading everything (which took a few minutes to do, due to the lack of instant min-to-max functionality or holding click to auto click) to give myself some challenge. Problem: My damage was down to zero. It took five hits to kill a bunny, dealing literally 1 damage with each hit. I encountered similar issues when dialing back the spawn rate multiplier. I am now seemingly stuck between being absolutely swarmed with mobs, or having literally nothing spawn at all alongside either dissolving anything i come it contact with, or being unable to damage it.
Verdict: I would love to be able to dial back my powers mid-playthrough without becoming literally incapable of damaging/spawning things. And for the love of sanity, please make it so we don't have to click every single time we want to go up or down an upgrade. I have neither the patience nor the mouse durability to do that without discomfort.
This is an interesting mod with a solid concept. I feel like it allows you to go more than a bit insane more than a bit too early in the game, so having boss-locked levels of progression be at least toggle-able in the config section would be nice. I know your driving motivation behind this mod was to give players complete freedom over their paths, but having +9 minions, 600 health, base defense of 25 and damage reduction/multipliers by the time I fought the Wall of Flesh made even gear progression itself seem pointless. I didn't even bother to put up an arena to fight all 3 mechanical bosses in one night (twice) without bothering to grab any hardmode-tier armor. I dissolved them in seconds. In expert mode.
Overall point: I lacked the discipline to pace myself, and ruined any sense of challenge or balance the game normally present. An optional progression-limiter would be nice.
My grievances with balance aside, I was wondering if you could add a way of applying upgrades to different damage types from other mods? Rogue damage from Calamity, Stand Damage/speed/stats from the JojoStands mod, Hunter Damage/Overheat from the Metroid mod. If you could add a way to factor in upgrades to things from different mods, it would open the floodgates for cross-mod play everywhere. You could bring gear from a mod that barely reaches Moon Lord-level challenges into a mod as destructive and challenging as Calamity's Revengeance mode with ease! It would bring me no end of joy to kick Supreme Calamitas' sinister behind as Samus using the Metroid mod!