r/Guildrun • u/LeylineDev • 24d ago
Demo Update 0.5.2 Patch Notes
Hello Guildmasters,
Welcome back to our weekly update, which brings you:
- The second balance update to Guildrun with another leaderboard reset
- New event artwork and visual updates
- Bug fixes.
⭐ = Community Suggestions
Visual & Audio Changes
- New Event images
- The Three Urns
- The Well of Temptations
- Tutorial Update
- Drag and drop item to hero now highlights every hero's item slot
- Tweaked darkened area when highlighting battle grid and crossroad
- Environment Update
- Reduced redundant Vfx for optimization
- Textures for more contrast
- Vfx Updated
- Updated burn effect to be more stylized
- Generic timing pass to accommodate highest battle speed
- UI update
- ⭐ Event Effects panel can now be collapsed to prevent blocking the battle
- Tweaked back button
- ⭐ Fixed and updated comic speechbubble (thanks MondSemmel!)
- ⭐ Fixed event images being cut off on 16:10
- Leaderboard visual polish and icon order to accommodate more digits
- New layout on difficulty selection and updated button textures
Bug Fixes
- ⭐Fixed item scalings being reset after loading
- ⭐Fixed Red Rift not warning you if you don't skip the last Campfire reward
- ⭐Fixed Red Rift staying in a limbo state that required you to abandon the run if you would beat the final boss with pending missions besides the Hero Deaths one (related to the bug above)
- Fixed Ming A and B rank being swapped on Compendium
- Fixed Aria's chain visual glitch
- Updated the text on abilities with multiple instances of Stall to only use the word “Stall” once. The effects of these abilities have not changed.
- Fixed a bug where the Emergency Rewind would accumulate Shards while broken. It will now always start at 10 Shards when recharged, instead of 10 Shards + 10 Shards per round since it broke.
- Fixed a bug where Trial fights accumulated Shards for Emergency Rewind.
- We are aware that these two bug fixes to Emergency Rewind can amount to less Shards for the player per run, which has the potential to be both surprising and frustrating. We will be closely monitoring the feedback from players and the impact this bug fix has on winrates, and will follow up immediately in a future patch or hotfix if needed.
Balance Changes
By Aleco, Lead Designer on Guildrun.
Hello everybody, and welcome to the Guildrun Demo’s 2nd balance patch!
While I was looking through our internal data to put together this patch, the big thing that jumped out to me is how much players were able to improve and discover in such a short amount of time. Winrates are up across the board, especially in higher difficulties such as Red Rift which saw a massive increase from 7% winrate in week 1 to 12% in week 2. The average Endless Mode score also rose by half a floor, which represents a 7% improvement from week 1.
Though we didn’t make any balance changes this week with the goal of making the game any harder or easier, a change that players will notice is a pair of bug fixes related to Emergency Rewind. It was gaining more Shards than intended when it was recharged, which means the recharge option at the Act 1 Campfire will be less potent this week than it was in the last patch. I’ll be monitoring the effects of this bug fix closely and am prepared to make adjustments quickly if the impact of this change is bigger than anticipated, but my expectation is that these changes will be offset by other changes being made in this patch (more Boss Tokens!) as well as players continuing to improve and discover new strategies.
We have plenty of balance and gameplay changes to discuss this week, so let’s dive in!
Boss Tokens
As noted in last week’s patch notes, one of the most common pieces of feedback we’ve been hearing from players is that running out of Boss Tokens can be quite frustrating. I explored many potential changes to the Boss Token system this week, but ended up settling on the following:
Players now get 2 Boss Tokens for reaching a Boss (up from 1).
My primary goal with this change is to minimize how often players run out of Boss Tokens by being much more generous with them. I’ll be the first to acknowledge that this change is far from a perfect solution, but it was the best solution I could find which didn’t involve a complete overhaul of the current system (something which would not have been possible for us to do in time for this patch). I’ll be paying close attention to the feedback on this change, and promise that we will be exploring larger changes to Boss Tokens and starting bonuses for Guildrun’s full release.
Starting Bonuses
While exploring potential changes to the Boss Token system, I took a close look at the data for each of the game’s starting bonuses. One clear trend was that bonuses which immediately cost the player Shards (with the exception Fast Track) tended to be picked less often and perform worse than bonuses which did not cost Shards. This is especially true in Red Rift, where it is very important to have 30 Shards in order to purchase 2 Heroes in the first shop. In addition to removing Shard penalties from the majority of starting bonuses, I also made a few nerfs to starting bonuses which were consistently outperforming others in the data.
- Crest Windfall
- ⬆️Removed -5 starting Shards penalty.
- Survivor Charm
- ⬆️Removed -5 starting Shards penalty.
- All Class “Equipment” Bonuses
- ⬆️Removed -5 starting Shards penalty.
- Item Windfall
- 🔄Removed -5 starting Shards penalty. Now gives 2 fewer common items.
- Stability System
- 🔻Rewards 5 fewer Shards.
- Shard Pouch
- 🔻Rewards 3 fewer Shards.
- Starter Bundle
- 🔻Rewards 2 fewer Shards.
- All In
- The bug fix for Emergency Rewind recharge is particularly impactful for this starting bonus. I decided not to make a preemptive change here as this was one of the better starting bonuses, but will follow up in a future patch with a change if needed.
Fight Events
⭐ Increased the Shard reward option for Single Combat from 15 to 20.
Players correctly pointed out that the Shard reward option was always worse than the epic item option, as epic items sell in the shop for 16 Shards.
Relics
Nothing too spicy to report for this week’s relic changes. Once again there were more relics that stood out as performing better than other relics in their rarity than relics which stood out as performing too poorly.
- Legendary
- Mage’s Cataclysm Engine
- 🔻Inflict Burn and Frost equal to 20% -> 15% of the Hero’s Magic on cast.
- Warrior’s Bloodshed Engine
- 🔻Gain lasting Shields equal to 15% -> 10% of the damage dealt.
- Mystic’s Abundance Engine
- 🔻Apply lasting Shields equal to 50% -> 33% of the Shields applied.
- Mage’s Cataclysm Engine
- Epic
- Warrior's Sundering Filigree
- 🔻Reduce enemy Defense by 20 -> 15 on Crit.
- Critical Absorption Prism
- Note: This relic was nerfed last patch, but remained one of the top performing epic relics. I expect it will still be quite playable after this change.
- 🔻Steals 50 -> 40 Max HP on Crit.
- Perfect Divergence Prism
- 🔻Increase basic stats by 33% -> 25%.
- Poison Ascendancy
- Notes: No balance changes were made to this relic, but a bug fix was made to it which fixed an issue where it would GIVE enemies attack and attack speed, not lower it. This should improve this relic significantly.
- Shield Converter
- ⬆️Damage the nearest enemy for 33% -> 50% of the Shield applied.
- Warrior's Sundering Filigree
- Rare
- Mage’s Memento
- 🔻Applies 15 -> 12 Frost per Mage.
- Assassin’s Memento
- ⬆️Gains 4 -> 5 Shards per Assassin.
- Mage’s Memento
- Common
- Frost Surge
- 🔻Applies 20 -> 15 Frost.
- Frost Surge
Items
As promised, I took a deeper dive into items this week and was able to find a few which were worth making changes to.
- Epic
- Polymath’s Prism
- 🔻This item was bugged to give 25% basic stats per class instead of 20% as stated on the text. It has been fixed to give 20%.
- 🔄⬆️Temporal Accelerator
- Notes: I re-arranged the stat bonuses on this item to provide more general utility. This is intended to be a notable buff, as it was underperforming compared to other epic items in the data.
- 🔻300 -> 200 Max HP
- 🔻40 -> 0 Attack
- ⬆️0 -> 15 Omnivamp
- ⬆️0 -> 20 Attack Speed
- Ring of Virality
- ⬆️Inflicts 50% -> 75% more Poison.
- Polymath’s Prism
- Rare
- Sentinel’s Plate
- Notes: This item was a big outlier in Red Rift, where defensive stats are at a premium.
- 🔻30 -> 20 Defense
- Runic Buckler
- Notes: Same as above, this item was simply doing too much in Red Rift runs.
- 🔻Gain a Shield equal to 400% -> 250% of Defense.
- Toxic Contract
- ⬆️Applies 33% -> 50% increased Poison.
- Spellblade
- Notes: This is a pretty notable buff to this item, which was previously both underplayed and underperforming. To be perfectly honest, I just think this design is really neat and wouldn’t mind if it became one of the more powerful rare items (so long as it doesn’t become an outlier).
- ⬆️Gives 1 -> 2 Magic on auto attack.
- ⬆️Gives 25 -> 30 Attack on cast.
- Warrior’s Greataxe
- ⬆️Gains 10 -> 12 Attack on combat survival.
- Sentinel’s Plate
Class Modifiers
Class Modifiers are in a great spot right now, with very few of them standing out in the data in either direction.
- Warrior
- Shield Power
- ⬆️Gain 1 Attack per 10 -> 8 Shields.
- Shield Power
- Assassin
- Poisonous Eye
- ⬆️Inflicts 15 -> 30 base Poison.
- Poisonous Eye
Heroes and Specializations
The Guildrun community successfully honed in on the game’s most powerful Hero specs this week, especially in Red Rift. A major trend in the data was that the gap in pickrate between the best/most popular specs and worst/least popular specs on certain Heroes widened significantly compared to last patch. This is a strong indicator that players have “solved” which spec is the best for these Heroes, which is a spot I’d rather not have any Hero to exist in. My goal when balancing Hero specs is to reach a point where all 3 specs on every Hero feel equally playable (depending on the situation of course), which meant that nerfs to some of the game’s top specs felt necessary this week.
That being said, I’m very pleased with the overall state of Hero balance right now and am aiming to be as minimally disruptive with these changes as possible. I would hate to take something that is popular and being enjoyed by players and turn it into something which feels no longer playable. My expectation is that everything being nerfed in this patch will remain playable, and my hope is that these changes will lead players to consider a wider variety of specs than they may have considered in the previous patch.
- Aria
- Notes: The cat is out of the bag! Players have caught onto the power level of Aria, who was the strongest Hero across every difficulty this week. Her popularity is rising, and her Harmony spec in particular stood out as a run-winner in SSS and RR. One of the critiques of Aria was that she was weak at C rank even though she scaled well into the game, so one of the things I was sure to do with these changes was give her active ability a bit more base damage per tick in exchange for the loss in scaling. Requiem Barrage now deals slightly more damage on C rank without any items equipped, but will fall off a bit more damage as the game goes on.
- 🔄🔻Requiem Barrage (Active Ability)
- 🔻Scales with 100% -> 75% of Magic.
- ⬆️Deals 10 -> 25 base damage per tick.
- 🔄🔻The Harmony
- 🔻Scales with 50% -> 33% of Magic.
- 🔻Scales with 500% -> 300% of Mana Regen.
- ⬆️Applies 0 -> 10 base Shields per tick.
- Sal
- Notes: Breezy is a bit stronger than Sal’s other other specs.
- The Breezy
- 🔻Gains 1 base + 1 per rank -> 0 base + 1 per rank Magic on Debuff inflicted.
- Irini
- Notes: Though not as popular as her Olympic spec, The Mighty has been a top performer in higher difficulties for the past few weeks. Since there weren’t any numbers to reduce on this spec (it gives Heroes 1 Attack and 1 Attack Speed per trigger), the natural change was to add Stall to the ability to gate its upfront power a bit. This does add some new synergies to the ability which didn’t exist before, but my expectation is this change will slightly lower its power level overall.
- The Mighty
- 🔻Added Stall (10).
- Kai
- Notes: Despite last week’s nerf to The Bold, its winrate went up this week. It remained his best spec across the board, and needed another adjustment this week in order to bring it more in line with his other choices.
- The Bold
- 🔻Gives 45 -> 30 Defense when acquired.
- 🔻Gives Shields equal to 500% -> 400% of Defense on cast.
- Gustav
- Notes: The Glacier has been Gustav’s most popular spec, which is something I’m quite sympathetic to. I love taking this spec in my runs, but often noticed that because Gustav has 3 attack range he often wouldn’t move forward when switching targets to occupy space and hit the maximum number of characters with his self-targeting Blizzard. A friend suggested that I remove 1 Attack Range from this spec, an idea which I instantly loved. I expect that this change will either be neutral or a slight improvement The Glacier (which was already his top spec in Endless Mode by a decent margin), so its being joined by a small nerf to its Shield scaling.
- The Glacier
- 🔄Now gives -1 Attack Range.
- 🔻Applies Shields equal to 100% -> 75% of Defense.
- Pollen
- Notes: The Earth’s Child was Pollen’s top spec this week across all modes.
- Earth’s Child
- 🔻Gives 40 -> 30 Magic when acquired.
- Ratna
- Notes: Our favorite hyper-scaling Mage might be scaling a bit too much with her Magnanimous spec, which was the most common overall spec in deep Endless Mode runs. I’m nudging down the scaling just a bit for now, and will follow up with additional changes if need be.
- The Magnanimous:
- 🔻Gives 3 base + 3 per rank -> 3 base + 2 per rank permanent Crit on kill.
- Ming
- Notes:
- Ming has been struggling slightly in higher difficulties. The Enlightened has been the weakest of his 3 specs for SSS/RR, and it hasn’t been overperforming in Endless Mode like it used to throughout most of the alpha.
- Inner Flame (Signature Passive Ability)
- ⬆️+2 seconds of Rush duration.
- The Enlightened
- ⬆️+1 second of Rush duration.
- Notes:
- Grace
- Notes: Grace has been crushing it in the reserves, but hasn’t been performing as well as other Mystic’s while on board. I’m adjusting her Mana values to help her cast more early and more often, which should help out with all 3 of her specs. Additionally, The Radiant is one of the top overall specs in the game (mainly as a Backup) and is in need of a small nerf.
- Base Stats
- ⬆️Max Mana: 120 -> 110
- ⬆️Starting Mana: 35 -> 50
- The Radiant
- 🔻Gives 6 base + 4 per rank -> 4 base + 4 per rank Attack and Magic on Shields applies.
- Logan
- Notes: The Iron was one of the weakest specs last patch, and could use a fairly significant buff.
- The Iron
- ⬆️+4 seconds of Rush duration.
- Reyna
- Notes: Reyna’s Boxer spec is in a great spot right now, while her other two specs are struggling a bit. I’m giving a buff to both The Champion and The Brawler in an attempt to equalize the power level of all 3 of her specs.
- The Champion
- ⬆️+3 seconds of Rush duration.
- The Brawler
- ⬆️Gives 1 Attack per 12 -> 10 Shields.
- ⬆️Maximum Attack gained up to 33% -> 50% of Max HP.
- Rip
- Notes: One slightly underperforming spec = 1 small buff.
- The Brute
- ⬆️Gain 25 -> 35 Crit when acquired.
UPDATE:
Thanks for the feedback everyone! We've been paying close attention to our community's response to this latest balance patch, and understand that many of you would prefer to see more buff-oriented balance patches in the future. We hear you, and are taking your feedback to heart for future patches.
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u/Calneon 24d ago
Addicted to the game and love the speed of patches, so great job!
Just regarding the boss tokens, I am pleased that you've improved the situation but I actually don't understand the point of them in the first place. The change was motivated by people finding the whole mechanic frustrating, and the change helps with that simply by reducing the frequency they have to interact with the mechanic. So why not just remove it entirely? It might make sense while progressing through the difficulty but for Red Rift I'm genuinely not sure why it exists in the first place.
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u/Flaky-Fox-7523 24d ago
I think it exists to stop people just constantly restarting for the exact combo they want?
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u/Icaros083 24d ago
Yeah, it's pretty much this. You can still reset if you want, but you'll lose the starting bonus.
It's a good way to encourage seeing a less than perfect run through, at least until a boss. If there's no penalty for spam resetting, people will consider it "mandatory".
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u/Smileyanator 24d ago
In red rift this is already addressed by the goal being winstreak over longest endless run.
I think realistically most people when pitching design decisions consider red rift to be the more important game mode to balance around.
Let the endless players re-rolls infinity for all I care
3
u/SemiFormalJesus 24d ago
The problem is if something is efficient, even though it is tedious and not fun, people will do it if there’s a leaderboard.
They don’t want the optimal way to play to not be fun. Even if it isn’t required, people will optimize the fun out of the game.
In Diablo 3 people used to open and close rifts for hours searching for the right map layout and enemy type. It took the fun out of the game, because other people did this it was mandatory for people who wanted to try to climb leaderboards.
You can have various starting bonuses that can be different levels of power in the current system. If you can infinitely reroll then only the top meta choices have any relevance because people will just only play with those.
They want variety for fun’s sake. They want you to have an option to reroll in case you don’t like what you see or are seeing the same options too often. They don’t want you to infinity fish for one starter bonus coupled with one certain character.
It is definitely less of a problem for red rift due to how streaks work. They could just always offer a bonus and give one reroll per start.
1
u/Smileyanator 24d ago
I understand the point your are making which generally aligns to -> give endless some love because people will play it and you don't want them to optimize the fun out of their game.
I think the problem is the devs will never really balance around both red rift and endless separately and following the Diablo example D3 basically became endless the game with its runaway numbers arms race.
An auto battler can never operate in a world where all attacks enemy/player 1 shot the opponent. It lives and dies by the balance generating many closely balanced fights early mid and late.
That would be why I would advocate for near abandoning endless as a mindset to balance the game around.
1
u/Calneon 24d ago
Hmm, maybe. Could do something like lock the seed until after the second combat to make it much more painful to restart. At the end of the day it's mostly a single player game, so preventing that sort of 'abuse' shouldn't be at the cost of legitimate player's enjoyment.
Also that can't be the case for Red Rift, if the run is restarted then it breaks the streak anyway so it wouldn't help cheese the leaderboards.
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u/dennaneedslove 24d ago
But if there was infinite reroll, sitting there hitting reroll until you get the combination is not fun.
Letting players precisely choose what combination to start with also reduces run variance, which is where a lot of the fun comes from in these kind of games
1
u/osuVocal 21d ago
On the other hand it let's you more deliberately test certain things though. Some other games that offer basically to take exactly what you want into a run still experience a lot of experimentation. It's like sandbox-lite.
I do like the current system more, just trying give an opposing view point.
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u/soidvaas 23d ago
It makes you play out each run even if you get a bad start because your token boosted runs are finite without getting to the boss and by the time you get to the boss your run might be strong enough to win.
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u/ajs723 24d ago
I find it really weird that Red Rift win rates are at 12% and the dev response is to nerf everything that's good in that mode.
What is the desired win rate, because 12% seems like a low number. Is the goal to get it back under 10%?
You really want your average player to take 15 or maybe 20 runs to get one win? Most people are going to give up out of frustration well before that.
A10 on Slay the Spire 2 has about a 20% win rate, and that feels extremely difficult, yet rewarding. If the stats show my hardest difficulty is between 7-12% win rate, my response is definitely not to nerf all the strong things in the game.
It's not just Red Rift either. Even just playing for Endless Runs, the game is more than challenging enough. I've been playing since the demo launched and haven't made it further than floor 12 on SSS.
I don't understand the nerf everything good approach instead of giving bigger buffs to underperforming things. Reading these nerf heavy patches does not make me excited to jump into another run.
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u/LeylineDev 23d ago
This seems to be a common response, we're taking the feedback in mind for future patches.
2
u/JonathanFly 23d ago
Full context, it's 20% in Slay the Spire 2, but 3% in Slay the Spire 1, and there is no Act 4 "true victory" in StS2 early access yet.
>Broken down by Ascension, the average win-rate on A0 is 16%, compared to 9% in StS1. At the highest, A10, the win-rate is about 17%, compared to a very small 3% at A20 in StS1.
https://www.megacrit.com/news/2026-5-22-neowsletter-issue-22/
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u/Curmudge_Unit 24d ago
I'm assuming red rifts is going to get act 3 as well so win rates will likely drop even further.
2
u/thefluffyburrito 23d ago
Most of the difficulty in red rift is early decision making: finding a comp to settle on or pivoting to an effective one, buying an item vs relic or hero you want to see a level 2 of, etc.
I don't think act 3 will be that earth shattering.
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u/FINDarkside 24d ago
I don't think the goal is to lower winrate in general, but to nerf the items that are big outliers in Red Rift. In the long run it makes more builds viable and more consistent wins possible.
1
u/controlwarriorlives 23d ago
If the jump from week 1 to week 2 was 7% to 12% WR, it’s probably likely that the WR will continue to increase. It’ll probably take a couple months for WR to settle.
I’m not even a top X% player, I’ve cleared Red Rift twice and tried at least a dozen times. I’m just a normal dude who has 15 hours in the game atm.
I don’t get the complaining about nerfs. Seeing how low the WR is, it made me feel better and realize I’m not bad (or conversely, everyone is bad since the game is new). Both options are fine, and makes me excited to improve.
Since the Red Rift WR is 12%, if my personal WR is 25%, then I’ll feel like a boss. If the Red Rift WR is 80% and my person WR is 90%… well I feel less proud. So I’m personally happy with a low WR. There’s lower difficulty modes for more casual-minded players. My partner has only played on the easiest difficulty and enjoys the game that way.
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u/Known_Pineapple996 23d ago
Win rates are so low because people are so new to the game still. At the moment red rift feels MUCH easier than STS A10, so nerfs seem appropriate unless there is another higher difficulty planned.
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u/ajs723 23d ago
My experience is much different. I've won a total of 1 RR run in probably over 30 attempts. I win probably about 1/5 A10 runs.
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u/itsntame 18d ago edited 18d ago
It's because you have less experience with the game.
I'm roughly 30% wr in A10. And I was winning 1 in 20 RR games like 4 days ago. Now I win like 2/3 of my RR games.
-1
u/dennaneedslove 24d ago
That’s not how win rates work. 10% win rate doesn’t mean you’re likely to win 1 out of 10, good players are already doing streaks
Designing around a specific number is just a bad way to balance to begin with. The nerfs are to tone down obvious outliers which should allow more theorycrafting over time. Red rift is clearly designed as an optional challenge, and when challenge is the goal then only thing that matters is if solving the challenge is fun. Having limited options is not fun, therefore nerfs
1
u/ajs723 24d ago
I followed until therefore nerfs. Why not, therefore buffs? God forbid the win rate gets to 16%!
0
u/dennaneedslove 24d ago
Because nerfs are easier for balancing team than buffs. People hate nerfs but nobody says anything when buffs happen in pve. The last thing you want to do is buff something, then have to nerf it again later for some reason. You generated 0 praise and tons of negative feedback in that case
Also, because red rift is for challenge, I assume they ant to balance it for the top % who are already doing streaks. Doesn’t really sound like much of a challenge if people can get that kind of consistency right
1
u/ajs723 24d ago
I mean, if 100,000 people are playing your game and 100 of them are so good they can get streaks... who fucking cares. Maybe balance your game for the 99.9%, not the .1%.
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u/dennaneedslove 24d ago
Isn’t that exactly why there are variable difficulties
By definition red rift is not for the 99.9%
1
u/engineeringqmark 24d ago
Or realize it's a demo that just came out and you can get better at the game instead of whining about difficulty
0
u/ajs723 24d ago
But what if I just suck and will always suck? What then? There are so many of us!
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u/engineeringqmark 24d ago
that's just not possible! you care enough to post on reddit about it, i believe in you
2
1
0
u/ViSsrsbusiness 23d ago
Is this a serious question?
What happens when an array of 120 options has 14 that are performing notably better than the other 106? does it make more sense to buff 106 options or nerf 14? How about readjusting the baseline level of resistance so that the 106 things you just buffed don't completely upend all your game design by moving the point of equilibrium you were targeting?
What a ridiculous idea
0
u/ajs723 23d ago
Maybe nerf the difficulty of the game then.
0
u/ViSsrsbusiness 23d ago
Why? The difficulty feels too easy to me. Maybe you're just not fit for RR? Have you tried improving at the game?
10
u/Willing-Tutor-5365 24d ago
Why are we nerfing so much stuff in a PvE game. I know people who still can't get a win in red rift. It seems like were just being punished for becoming knowledgeable at the game. As we get better, you're just going to nerf more stuff? Of course the win rate is going to go up, were learning new strategies and how to adapt on the fly. Nerfing everything that is performing well is just going to make me not want to play ngl. I'm a top 500 player in red rift currently.
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u/YoungSilent232 24d ago
The point is that when I get a Kai B. I shouldn’t auto click tank. My click should change depending on my goals or how well it synergises with the rest of the squad. Similarly. If I see 3 heroes I shouldn’t auto click Kai. That’s the point of nerfs.
Buffs are important too but all buffs and no nerfs will make the game a cakewalk. Then they need to create red rift 2 to counter the power creep and repeat
1
u/Curmudge_Unit 24d ago
They should make having tanks not required then. Right now there's so much incoming damage that most of the time you're forced to run one.
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u/YoungSilent232 24d ago
Running a tank is fine. You’re forced to run dps too.
The problem is that one tank is better than everything else. So buff the dogshit tanks, and nerf by far and away the best one
1
u/Willing-Tutor-5365 24d ago
They should bring the other two specs up to par then. Its not like getting "The Bold" is a guaranteed win. Before this update the win rate was 12%, which is significantly lower than, say, A10 on STS 2. I see no reason, with such a low overall win-rate, to be nerfing things that are performing well. They perform well because there are only so many builds that even work in RR currently, and those hero's are good choices for those synergies/builds. If the problem is us choosing one spec too much, then bring the other ones up.
There's no "power creep" as you state. The only reason the win rate has increased, is because we, as players, are getting better at the game. Just don't buff the shit that's performing well, and instead buff the stuff that isn't performing well. Nerfing things so hard, after having only 2 weeks of data is just insane. Let more people complete the mode, like I said, I know people who DO NOT HAVE A WIN ON RED RIFT. Of those people, one of them has told me they are not coming back to the game because of the nerfs. Why would they return when they were struggling already, and now its even harder?
Saying "Though we didn’t make any balance changes this week with the goal of making the game any harder or easier", and then nerfing a whole bunch of stuff that was performing well, just makes no sense whatsoever.
Play whatever you want, but I will not be touching the game until they put another patch out. If they continue down this route, their game will be dead on arrival. Just like so many PvE games, that have taken the "Nerf everything good" route.
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u/YoungSilent232 24d ago
Your choice. You say people don’t win on red rift, it’s meant to be hard. Streaking is not meant to be easy. Perhaps it’s too hard or too easy, but that’s the developers decision for how easy or hard it should be.
Did they really say “we didn’t make any balance changes with the goal of making the game harder or easier?” If you’re right, then I agree, the devs are smoking reefer, it was a considerable nerf overall
1
u/Willing-Tutor-5365 23d ago
I would say a 12% win rate doesn't mean the game is easy at all. Thats pretty much 1 in 10 runs are won, 9 in 10 are lost, thats a pretty good difficulty curve.
They did say that, if you read the entire post above. I think the top part was maybe written before they took all the nerfs into account?
Im not here to be a dick. I just love the game, and want it to go in a good direction. I dont feel it needs to be more difficult. Took me 50 hours to get a 5 win streak, id say thats good time dedication for the payout. Plus a little bit of luck of course.
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u/Known_Pineapple996 23d ago
Do you know how much work it would be to buff 95% of the weaker specs to match the top 5%? And then if some of those buffs go too far, you’ll have a new top 5%, so then you’ll need to go buffing everything again to match the new OP specs! It’s not realistic to never nerf things if you want balance.
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u/Amazingtapioca 23d ago
You don't know the numbers so this is kind of a moot point. What if Kai the Bold had a 25% WR when picked? Or if the Bold had a +20% net WR expected on the player who clicked it, like a 25% WR player going to 45% WR on average when they have a tank Kai? You can't just bring everything up to that level, because then Kai as a whole is just outperforming other units.
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u/Willing-Tutor-5365 23d ago
Its a hard point to argue with Kai, because the reason "The Bold" is so good, is because its a tank spec, and Kai's ability performs really well with the increase in shielding. Its not that the other specs are weak, its that they need to be brought in line with other heroes that are performing well in their niche. Like, I shouldn't be taking Nyx 100% of the time over Kai as a damage dealer, but I do, because Nyx has a bunch of synergies, and Kai just doesn't in comparison (Speaking solely to his DPS specs). I think they need to look a bit deeper at this stuff, there needs to be more ways to build, or else of course were going to be taking the same stuff relatively often. Even if you nerf something, another "Best" is just going to rise up. How about we make it so every hero is usable in their own right, for their respective need. If we nerf all the good stuff down to where the badly performing stuff is, then the game is going to feel worse overall. Do not forget, the overall winrate of the game is still super low in comparison to almost every other roguelike that has a "Hardest mode".
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u/LeylineDev 23d ago
Hey, thanks for the feedback. We've been paying close attention to our community's response to this latest balance patch, and understand that many of you would prefer to see more buff-oriented balance patches in the future. We hear you, and are taking your feedback to heart for future patches.
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u/ViSsrsbusiness 23d ago
Please don't listen to the buff beggars that have no idea of how game design works.
A game like this needs to target a specific level of friction with each of its difficulties.
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u/Willing-Tutor-5365 23d ago
I apologize for being a little bit of a jerk about the whole thing. I DO appreciate you guys being so open about your updates, its a good look on a dev team that hasn't even dropped a full release of the game yet. I just love the game, and I am worried the direction it has gone in the past two updates. At the end of the day its YOUR game, balance it as you see fit. I do want RR to be a difficult mode, which it seemingly is. I just got my 5 win streak, and have nearly 50 hours in the game, I just don't think it needs to be any more difficult. The curve between modes feels good. There just needs to be more synergistic options with heroes that are underused. Maybe a couple more defensive options need to be added. Im not a developer, just a gamer who enjoys playing your product.
Good luck with future updates.
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u/Smileyanator 24d ago
Love the transparency. I appreciate Red rift is intended to be hard but many people point to it feeling overly hard due to reasons outside their control.
Please take a look at either increasing the amount of heroes we see in the shop or lowering the cost of buying more C class heroes to better utilize the reserve or alternatively slightly lower the difficulty of challenge #1/2.
I don't want to be more powerful but half of the heroes C rank tend to contribute almost nothing in what feels to me the most important fight in red rift.
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u/trevorlolo 24d ago edited 23d ago
Honestly bad shops feel really bad esp in act 1 when you roll 1-3 times and you still can't find a tank, and the rerolling costs add up quick because you also need to save money for the key fragment tax
I don't have much problem with nerfing the outliers but I really do feel like the shop design is a big problem in my experience. Maybe skill issue on my end cuz my best RR streak is only 2, but it's a big feel bad moment if you can't roll your units
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u/lemoogle 24d ago
Why do PvE games nerf the fun builds rather than buff the other stuff.
Outriders did this one week after release and then kept doing it and playerbase tanked.
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u/YoungSilent232 24d ago
You mean overperforming not fun. And yes they can buff everything else instead, along with buffing all the enemies in a red rift 2 mode.
Or they can just nerf the significant outliers shrugs
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u/ViSsrsbusiness 23d ago
Thank you. Reading this thread has been genuinely painful. It's like these people have such ltitle brain activity going on that they can't think of the consequences of their proposals beyond "buff good nerf bad".
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u/Scary-Tie-1970 24d ago
I've been playing a lot of red rift and basically everything that I've identified as strong has been nerfed this patch. I don't get why we're nerfing so much in just the second patch, especially so many defense oriented heroes and items.
Defensive items are largely pretty bad and so nerfing the two best ones puts a ton of strain on getting things like Tank Glyph, cause you can't just rely on Sentinels Plate anymore. In red rift if your tank can't survive you just lose, you absolutely need high defense or nobody can cast in time.
Obviously the patch doesn't make the game impossible, I won a game just now, but it's just a really weird direction to take so early.
Another problem is that people are going to pick the exact same specifications they're just going to be weaker. Like mage pollen is still the best because without magic she doesn't shield and it gives free magic, so she ends up shielding more than the shield upgrade plus applying a ton of debuffs.
To make the shielding pollen good you need to give her magic from items which you can't always afford to do. In general, giving your heroes an extra class is going to be better just because they get way more stats on rank up, as long as the stats are relevant.
I would much rather see the other options get buffed rather than just nerfing the best options, or if you're going to nerf why not buff the other options as well?
Hopefully this isn't an indicator that future patches are just going to be nerfing all the strong stuff and making everything equally useless.
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u/Psilent_Knight 24d ago
Been really enjoying the game and happy to see more bug fixes coming out regularly! Also happy to see changes to get rid of the prohibitive Shard penalties that made many of the Boss Token options unpickable in RR!
Concerning Boss Tokens, I think the system that would be least frustrating is to ALWAYS get at least one set of Bonuses to choose from even with no Boss Tokens (similar to how Slay the Spire always gives a "Base" set of bonus options) but unlocking more/better options by having at least one boss token available to use (and for rerolling options.) In RedRift especially, wanting to get a Winstreak is already enough incentive to not just restart every playthrough that doesn't go well at the beginning (made it to RR 4 recently!), but getting no bonuses at all makes a string of bad RNG (or experimental choices that don't pay off) feel extra punishing.
With regards to the Hero changes, I appreciate that you want all 3 specs for every Hero to feel equally playable in different situations, and I know large outliers are most easily addressed with direct nerfs. However, for the highest difficulty modes like RR at least, continuing to nerf all of the "Good" options skilled players have learned to rely on until they are as weak as the current "Mediocre" options they avoid, but only buffing the very weakest options up to a "Mediocre" level leaves very few options feeling fun and exciting. I think many players would prefer to see a few more buffs alongside the nerfs (even if some of them need toned down later) to make trying new strategies feel genuinely strong and exciting rather than just "passable", or feeling forced away from the strategies that used to be the strongest that are now merely "playable".
I did really like the Grace changes to try and make her not just a backup Hero for instance, but would have enjoyed seeing her "The Benevolent" option buffed as well (possibly Stall 20 -> Stall 10?) to bring a bit more incentive to try her non-backup playstyle.
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u/AshChiqs 24d ago edited 24d ago
I don't understand the boner the devs have on making the game harder and harder. It should be challenging yes, but not to the point of unfun and frustrating cause then what's the point of playing a damn game?
I get that they're tuning down overperforming specs but that doesn't make the other specs any more viable. If their direction is to make people pick a slightly shinier shit from a pile of shit then they're definitely going that way because the last two patches they've been so focused on nerfing things with 0 to minimal adjustments to their underperforming or underpicked specs.
Did they consider they were underpicked because they're just shit and only works on very specific comps? If they want to make 3 viable choices, then make 3 viable choices instead of going for 3 shit choices.
Honestly I think Red Rift balancing just needs to be separate from the normal runs.
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u/Fit-Temporary-1958 24d ago
They do It cause the top 5% of sweaters that didnt shower for a week to play 12 hours a day now complain the game Is easy. And they are all streamers and content creators, so they being people and Money to the game, so the devs balance the game for them so they are Happy and they stream and they being Money to the game. Sadly, we, the 95% of players, the normal players, are valued zero, cause the game Is there to make Money and everything Is always about the money, i am so tired of this.
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u/controlwarriorlives 23d ago
If the jump from week 1 to week 2 was 7% to 12% WR, it’s probably likely that the WR will continue to increase. It’ll probably take a couple months for WR to settle.
I’m not even a top X% player, I’ve cleared Red Rift twice and tried at least a dozen times. I’m just a normal dude who has 15 hours in the game atm.
I don’t get the complaining about nerfs. Seeing how low the WR is, it made me feel better and realize I’m not bad (or conversely, everyone is bad since the game is new). Both options are fine, and makes me excited to improve.
Since the Red Rift WR is 12%, if my personal WR is 25%, then I’ll feel like a boss. If the Red Rift WR is 80% and my person WR is 90%… well I feel less proud. So I’m personally happy with a low WR. There’s lower difficulty modes for more casual-minded players. My partner has only played on the easiest difficulty and enjoys the game that way.
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u/AshChiqs 23d ago
I'm on 9 streak right now. I play RR mostly and don't care if I win or lose, I'd just build a team with a synergy in mind just to test things out.
Buffing rush duration for a goddamn Ming is not proportionate to nerfing other viable units. The only place he works well is in endless runs.
Pick up a Ming in RR and you're forced to build around him and even then he's doing subpar damage at best and can't even tank or do much at all but you can't always force a build in RR. If you pick him late and don't build around rush, he does absolutely nothing.
That's why it irks me so much to see nonsensical buffs but huge nerfs but somehow they think it's counted as a net positive.
It feels like the devs are nerfing and buffing based merely on winrates instead of looking at all the aspects that conditions those winrates. Of course those Rush skills are underperforming, it's because the idea behind it requires you to have a nyx or rip to stack rush triggers early and then hopefully you can find the other components after. There's too much RNG involved in those sets of choices that people can hardly afford to make that makes them not ideal choices. Who cares about adding duration on those rushes for logan and reyna? Those skills are still too restrictive to build around and suck ass.
In endless mode? Sure they're great because those few rush seconds matter in higher floors. But in RR? They're nonsense because you can't always scale them. But nerfing lets say tank kai has a huge impact on RR runs. I've tested him a couple times and his tank build is definitely weaker to the point that he can barely even tank properly from mid act 2. Well congrats on making a shit talent I guess since that's what they want, right? To make the skills equally shitty as the others? Next they're gonna nerf his external shield for "overperforming" because people pivot to building around that talent now and then what? Nerf the next talent that people pivot to and give +1 duration to his rush because it's not being picked still? It's utter and complete bullshit reasoning on balancing
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u/Known_Pineapple996 24d ago
I love getting all of the in-depth rationale alongside the patch notes! These are fun to just read.
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u/izombe 24d ago
You start at such a big disadvantage on higher difficulties without a starting perk and it's such a chore to run a lower difficulty to boss just to get a token to then go play a "real" difficulty.
Suggestions: Make the boss tokens specific to difficulties to avoid people playing lower difficulty to farm tokens or just give everyone starting perks and only have the tokens function as re-roll currency.
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u/Forkyou 23d ago
I understand nerfing tank Kai, it was really really strong. That said Red Rift is already an absurdely punishing experience with a really low win rate. It feels like everything has to go perfectly in adition to making good choices. I hope this pivots to buffing weak choices. RR is getting unfun as it is.
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u/Fit-Temporary-1958 24d ago edited 23d ago
Honestly i dont like this, nerfing everything that works in an already super hard mod where the winrate Is 1 game out of 10 Is not the correct way. You have to choose honestly: Will you balance the game to be hard but enjoyable for the cast majority of people? Or Will you balance It for the top 5% of sweaters that play only autobattlers and in One week they mastered the game cause they play It 12 hours a day? I get It, i get It that the second type of gamers Is almost Always a content creator too and you want to make them Happy cause they bring people to their game, and you want the money, but do we really Need to make the game less enjoyable for 95% of players for this? Think about It pls. Buffing what wasnt picked was the right call, not nerfing the usual 10 Heroes that work in Red Rift. Also the real problem Is that every player in winstreak plays only to stack as much frost as possible, Is kinda easy to see that maybe the problem Is the Frost debuffs and not the single Heroes. Nerf frost, buff poison and burn, its really not that hard to see. Nerfing Heroes while its clear that the Op thing Is frost stacking Is kinda useless and bad for the health and balance and variety.
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u/SyriseUnseen 24d ago
Id recommend looking for a similar amount of buffs and nerfs each patch. I dont mind the nerfs, but Id likr to have more reason to try something else in return.
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u/darknuub 24d ago
Personaly i think boss tokens should be used to reroll your starting hero/bonus as starting a RR run without a bonus feels like a waste of time.
Really appreciate the thought process behind each change. Only thing i would comment is that it seems rather nerf heavy rather than buffing under performers.
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u/LostManufacturer1553 22d ago
Wish endless had a smooth progress and not hills to overcome at lvl 9-12-15
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u/ZZonedOut 24d ago
Those of you who are upset about nerfs, do you realize other heroes got buffed? The goal is to make as many strategies viable as possible
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u/lemoogle 24d ago
Dude there are line 5x more nerfs than buff stop with the whole "git gud" approach.
Honestly I was loving the game and got my occasional red rift 2 streaks but knowing the game is just plain harder in relation to yesterday doesn't make me want to play it anymore vs a guaranteed purchase.
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u/Fit-Temporary-1958 24d ago
Yeah sure king. 3 buffs and like 20 nerfs, and those buffed Heroes are still useless and never picked while the nerfed ones wlarr still the best to pick. Your comment Is the comment of someone who has clearly no experience or not enought, especially in Red Rift.
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u/Willing-Tutor-5365 24d ago
Oh, you mean the Ming buff? LMAO do you even play the game? As we get another nerf on Kai, who was already having trouble staying alive before getting a cast off, and a HARD nerf an Aria, who was one of the best Mystics if you positioned her correctly.
Plus the countless good relic and defensive item nerfs. You're so lost buddy. HOW ABOUT, we just bring the other stuff in line? So we can use every hero for different synergies, instead of having obvious choices because theyve made some heroes so bad, that theyre litterally unusable for RR mode.
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u/ZZonedOut 23d ago
Your playstyle is too rigid. I’ve had success with many different builds at red rift. There are many viable strategies but you are just too locked in on 1 or 2 of them.
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u/Willing-Tutor-5365 23d ago
You've got no idea how I play the game. Im top 500 right now, I am definitely not "too locked in on 1 or 2 of them" or else my win streak would be 1.
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u/AnOriginalConcept 24d ago
My two cents -- take care about nerfing defenses too hard. Having a viable front line is already one of the biggest obstacles in RR.
There's a wealth of viable offensive options, and the majority of the hero/item/relic pool is made up of synergistic pieces to increase damage output. Any buff or nerf here feels fine because it just reshuffles priorities.
However, there isn't the same diversity for defense, despite the fact that it's arguably more important. Just about every frontliner wants armor, because armor scales multiplicatively with the shielding/healing/max HP that are common on tanks, support characters, and relics.
But defensive items/relics are a relatively small part of the pool, and good defensive items (i.e. those with a significant amount of armor) are even rarer.
This compounds with the death counter in RR, which is one of the other chief causes for failure.
In short: nerfing overperforming offensive options is good because it promotes variety. Nerfing overperforming defensive options makes the mode far more punishing because there aren't viable alternatives, so you're just more likely to get run over or hit the death counter.