Cave wizard
Terrarian
Shimmer is a massive QoL improvement, and greatly improves the game. I know that you want it to be a secret thing, but it's so useful that I actually see that as a waste. I brought over a shimmer bucket in one of my new worlds, and it was great to have. Slimes or crates giving you a bunch of platinum, but not enough to be useful, when you have gold as your ore? Throw them in and suddenly it was a boon rather than a shrug. Want ore staves or hooks while they're still useful but don't want to AFK for gemcorns to grow (and they'll still give you zero gems and maybe another gemcorn, you really should buff the drop rates)? Gem critters help, and so do gem conversions even if they're only downgrades, since having 8 amethysts is better than having five of every gem. Not to mention that the ore conversion lets you actually get the metals that you need for the staff, since you have a 99% chance of getting the ores that don't correspond to the gem you actually found enough of. Five pairs of mining pants but not a single shirt? Shimmer fixes that. Skeleton merchant's alternative look that is slightly less camouflaged in all the darkness? Shimmer. What I'm saying is, shimmer fixes a lot of early game problems, to the point of probably being the most useful when you aren't likely to have it.
It feels like some of the shimmer transmutations were done specifically to fix early game problems, instead of for example making the sapphire staff use either silver or tungsten, but the ones that need it the most won't even know that shimmer exists and if they do they won't know how to take advantage of it without using the wiki since all the recipes are secret. And so is the fact that shimmer transmutations are a thing at all, for that matter - if I hadn't heard of it I would have assumed it was some kind of new hazard after my first dip. Joe Newbie will still be scratching his head wondering where this gold bar thing is so that he can make that ruby staff and finally be a wizard.
Actually, looking at the shimmer list as I was typing this, I realized that it doesn't swap between two ores of the same tier, but rather downgrades the ore which in some cases keeps it in the same tier. That's a bit disappointing. You know what else is disappointing? That the shimmered princess is the second best NPC, but the regular princess is the best NPC so I can't have both. Too bad.
Anyway, to get back on track, shimmer is a good idea and I think it would be even better if it wasn't a secret. When I was reading the early hotfix patch notes and saw that you repeatedly kept nerfing transmutations, I was worried that you were going to nerf it into uselessness, but that seems to have stopped. Thanks for that. Game developers have a tendency to knee jerk nerf things into the ground when they realize that they're actually useful, so I'm happy to see that zombie arm into whoopie cushion isn't the only remaining transmutation.
It feels like some of the shimmer transmutations were done specifically to fix early game problems, instead of for example making the sapphire staff use either silver or tungsten, but the ones that need it the most won't even know that shimmer exists and if they do they won't know how to take advantage of it without using the wiki since all the recipes are secret. And so is the fact that shimmer transmutations are a thing at all, for that matter - if I hadn't heard of it I would have assumed it was some kind of new hazard after my first dip. Joe Newbie will still be scratching his head wondering where this gold bar thing is so that he can make that ruby staff and finally be a wizard.
Actually, looking at the shimmer list as I was typing this, I realized that it doesn't swap between two ores of the same tier, but rather downgrades the ore which in some cases keeps it in the same tier. That's a bit disappointing. You know what else is disappointing? That the shimmered princess is the second best NPC, but the regular princess is the best NPC so I can't have both. Too bad.
Anyway, to get back on track, shimmer is a good idea and I think it would be even better if it wasn't a secret. When I was reading the early hotfix patch notes and saw that you repeatedly kept nerfing transmutations, I was worried that you were going to nerf it into uselessness, but that seems to have stopped. Thanks for that. Game developers have a tendency to knee jerk nerf things into the ground when they realize that they're actually useful, so I'm happy to see that zombie arm into whoopie cushion isn't the only remaining transmutation.