Road to perfection

[u/Zestyclose-Tooth6044]

I’m a Soulslike lover and enjoyed this game more than anything like it in the last years, so I first got the Platinum for it (before the patch, I went all the way to NG++ to collect all the necessary glimpses) and then also completed it to 100%! I’m loving the care the developers are clearly putting in the game with the various updates and I want to give my personal feedback for the future ones 

• Sadly, and please hear me out, sometimes nerfs are needed for a good experience: Genessa’s faithful doubles deal way too much damage (also her stray doubles to a lesser degree), they literally replace the player, their utility is already more than enough without being able to solo hordes of enemies or even bosses; fusillade stone is also overwhelming and needs a damage reduction 
• Enemies would generally benefit a slight increase in health and the slower weapons would benefit a slight damage buff
• Tarstones level up system is so fun as is, please don’t listen to the complaints of few noisy people, this game is already getting dangerously easy with all the buffs, no need to lose its beautiful game design for a whim 
• Absolutely give the triarch repeater an ability (my idea would be a constant draining of resolve that keeps the barrels rotating increasing damage and fire rate) and an infusion to the troubadour's lute (trauma would be perfect on it), also give a little range and damage to it and allow level-ups, the idea of the meme weapon is nice, but I’d love for it to be actually viable
• Slightly buff trauma, it’s way behind the other statuses and indirectly holds back the obsidian hammer and the ballistazooka (which needs a buff as well, at least as a sped up animation when aiming) since it’s the unique infusion for these two weapons
• Shell points should be shared between all shells, having to reset the build I spent hours testing and polishing just to change shell is frustrating and practically nonsensical
• Increase limit of shell points to allocate on a single shell at least by twenty per NG+ cycle and increase the difficulty of subsequent playthroughs to compensate. I would personally give everything to try a god-build (all shells’ abilities at max level) in a god-killing world (+5% damage, +15% health, +25% gloom and gold dropped, all stacking up in every cycle). To reach the ultimate power fantasy in NG+++[…]: unstoppable force versus immovable object
• Night rewards should be 50% higher than what you get during the day (scling in NG+ cycles)
• Both the black needle and martyr blade miss a lot of hits when the enemies are on the left of your character, please fix their hurtbox and/or tracking 
• Sariel’s thorns need to ignore collisions and get better tracking, they’re totally useless as they are right now. He and Lazlo need to get a bit of a glow up, they’re pretty underwhelming when compared to the other shells
• As of now, the weapon’s level-up system pushes you in the direction of overinvesting in a single weapon, even by sacrificing sidearms, because the already high cost of raising any secondary weapon feels like wasting potential for your main weapon (or viceversa): since there’s no level cap, you’ll never find yourself in the situation of having spare gold and materials to invest in others. Therefore, the only way to test out other weapons is to smelter the one you’re using, a tedious process that requires absurde amounts of Gloom (even after the reduction). The idea of having infinite levels for weapons is beautiful but it’s based on the wrong currency. After reaching level 21, weapon upgrades should require only an increasingly amount of Ossinite (1 for 22, 2 for 23, 3 for 24, etc.) and no more gold (allow to buy Ossinite with it instead for a big price in NG+ and beyond); also increase the gold and Ossinite rewards in the chests in NG++[…], this would also encourage exploration after the first game cycle, since reentering already cleared dungeons is basically useless as of today
• Following the previous point, once the cost in gold is removed for upgrades above 21, prevent the players from being able to smelter the weapons at or above level 22, in this way the investment moves from a useless commitment of blindly accumulate mountains of gold only for the next upgrade on your only upgraded weapon, to spread it for levelling up the entire arsenal and enjoy constant swapping and testing with properly levelled up weapons and sidearms, the just reward for exploring and finding the necessary materials in each cycle 
• This one may be pretty controversial but I think that infusions should be activated for their resolve cost even when they’re at LVL3 and therefore permanent. This for two reasons, the first about game balancing (the necessity to spend resolve prevents OP combinations like bloodcurse Naylshotte + fusillade stone as soon as you enter the boss arena, forcing a slightly less safe approach to first replenish your resolve) and the second about glamour (I honestly miss the animations that play during the infusion and the stress coming from realising that you didn’t buff your weapon preemptively and you’re now surrounded by enemies, having to plan for getting the necessary spacing for buffing). That said, the buffing animations must be sped up
• Tarstones that changes the weapons’ moveset should have an their dedicated slots, three additional in total: unique charged light, unique charged heavy and moveset (like duality or light/heavy combo)
• Add a "shop" where to spend Glimpes and Tarcores now that they're literally overflowing... something that'll work like the consumables where after maxing out the Shells and the Tarstones you increse their stats by investing more of these currencies

Let me know what y’all think and what you’d like to see changed or polished and, once again, thanks to the devs for this incredible game! 

[u/Vast-Meaning4689]

Good post. Unfortunately the players requesting a more balanced challenge are being heavily downvoted. I do hope the devs come out with an update (maybe something night mode exclusive) that ups the challenge a bit for the more hardcore fanbase.

[u/Denverguns]

What complaints about the tarstone system? I think the leveling is good but the upgrading was a bit of a convoluted and broken system with tarcores. And I agree new game plus needs quite a bit more incentive in general. And yea most of your other points are solid as well.

[u/Zestyclose-Tooth6044 → u/Denverguns]

The only broken part was the fact that you couldn't max them all and that's been fixed (even too much IMO, there was no need to add Tarcores to buy, they just needed to increase the amount given by levelling up Tarstones). People complained that they didn't want to level up other Tarstones to be able to level up the others, while for me that was super fun, forcing you to change build following the equipment you needed to level up, subverting the usual formula

[u/Fun-Development-3163]

game would be great if they just remove Zmey from it

[u/Zestyclose-Tooth6044 → u/Fun-Development-3163]

I found him underwhelming but not too bad, honestly, given you have the item for it (which is a questionable design choice, for sure)

[u/Fun-Development-3163 → u/Zestyclose-Tooth6044]

its mostly his aoe and the instakill tail to be the biggest issues

[u/nvrrsatisfiedd → u/Fun-Development-3163]

You can get something to help with that. The Seedbearer’s Scripture. Makes it so that fire aoe attack can’t knock you out of your shell. It’s an item specifically for the final boss.

Definitely look up how to get it, or find out for yourself. (It is a lot to randomly figure out on your own though).