Bomb IDing Compensation | Patreon Weekly #274 (Patreon)

Hey Patrons, in this weekly I’m going to go over some changes I’m considering to possibly compensate for the changes to bomb IDing.

This weekly also includes an audio Q&A! You can find audio timestamps at the end of this weekly.

Backstory

In the v2.5.0 beta I’ve made a change to how explosions interact with equipment. Previously upgraded equipment would not be destroyed, which led to a strategy where players would purposefully use bombs to identify whether equipment was upgraded or not. This is obviously not intended, but I did understand that players were using it to help deal with inventory congestion (as un-upgraded gear was destroyed) and so I kept deciding to fix it later after more inventory management changes.

Later has become now, and based on the number of messages I’ve received I both underestimated how many people were using this exploit, and that many people were using it not just for inventory help but to completely avoid ever equipping something they didn’t know was upgraded beforehand. I now seriously regret not fixing this years ago, but here we are. Bomb IDing is not coming back, but the feedback is making me think about other adjustments I could make to soften the blow a little.

Bombs Themselves

One point I am seeing made a bunch is that bombs themselves aren’t exactly the most useful and bomb-IDing was a way to make them relevant, even if it was an exploit. It is true at the moment that bombs are quite underwhelming for their limited quantity and required setup.

A lot of the way bombs were designed was trying to account for pre-0.8.0 bosses, which were much more vulnerable to burst damage. Firstly, right away I can easily remove the bouncing mechanic, which largely existed to prevent bombs from being OP against Tengu as he existed in 2015. Damage could also be boosted, but I do want to still prevent them from doing huge amounts of burst, so I may also change bombs to simply break when hit by an explosion instead of exploding themselves.

Naturally, any buffs here may well apply to alchemy bombs in some form as well, but that would be designed afterward.

IDing and Inventory Management

As for the Equipment IDing half of things, I’m less inclined to make big changes here, as bomb IDing largely helped you circumvent IDing outright, which isn’t something I want to allow. I have gotten thinking about equipment IDing in general though, and have a couple ideas to take the edge off a little bit:

Stones of Disarming aren’t used very widely currently, and there’s also already so many ways to remotely trigger or disarm/destroy traps. I’m considering changing them to Stones of Dampen Curse, which would allow you to unequip a single cursed item, but wouldn’t help you actually cleanse it. This works a lot better as a weaker form of remove curse, and also gives players a new option when trying out several potentially cursed items.

Wells of Awareness are another possible thing to adjust. Currently, despite being about knowledge, these wells notably worse at IDing items compared to wells of health, which uncurse all worn items. I don’t know exactly how I’d buff them yet, but identified some amount of items in your inventory is an obvious option. Wells won’t appear consistently, so the effect could be quite strong, even so I don’t want it to be too strong.

I don’t yet have a specific plan as to if or when I might make these changes, although a patch for v2.5 seems likely if I do decide to add them. I’d love to hear what you guys think of this!

Audio Timestamps

This month there were 23 questions from 10 different patrons.

• 0:18 "after a long session of qna-scrounging to make sure the board was right i initiate a horsey battle! what is your response?" - radiantchaos

• 0:39 "have you ever been camping?" - radiantchaos

• 1:51 "There are a variety of passive weapon effects in the game (speed, accuracy, reach, etc.). Were there any other options that either haven't made the cut, or are considerations for other passive effects?" - Raynuva

• 3:43 "how was your day?" - Depresbian

• 6:26 "Are you feeling confident about dev work for the next update? It is going to be another big one!" - Veek

• 7:36 "if one of the non-boss enemy types had a change of heart and decided to become a hero, which would you have the most fun developing?" - Vorticia

• 8:57 "if you could put yourself into any fictional universe, what would you choose? (assuming you're a main character and not some rando). Well not literally a main character of that universe, you're you, but this is assuming you is a prominent character now" - radiantchaos

• 10:33 "do you still play deep rock?" - radiantchaos

• 11:58 "Do you think warrior is more boring than the other classes and if so do you think its a problem?" - Ehelos

• 13:42 "how useful would the trinkets be in real life?" - radiantchaos

• 14:54 "Given you have plans to fully expand out the Quest system, are there any plans to expand into the idea of Class-Specific Quests that arc over the entire run (e.g. Warrior repairing his Seal, Mage unsealing his power, etc.)?" - Raynuva

• 16:23 "Since you have expanded the Cursed Wand effects, are there plans to expand the Cursed Armor / Weapon effects?" - Raynuva

• 17:37 "Who are you making the sacrifice for when using the sacrificial altar? Vanilla PD mentions the Spirit of the Dungeon. Does something like that exist in Shattered PD?" - Block Vader

• 19:10 "what video games would each of the heroes like?" - radiantchaos

• 20:21 "Could there be a secret interaction with magical catalyst resulting in a unique trinket (just like there is the Ratmogrify secret)?" - Block Vader

• 21:43 "what's up with the cape of thorns? is it out for good or still in consideration as potentially a reworked artifact or even trinket" - Depresbian

• 22:29 "about what ratio of your work is coding vs social management?" - radiantchaos

• 25:01 "after cleric, what are other future classes you've thought about adding?" - Bolognathetoni

• 25:36 "why is the rat king so generous? why can't his subjects take after his example" - Bolognathetoni

• 26:21: "any new music on the go? (should specify i mean that you listen to, not for the game)" - radiantchaos

• 27:43 "what area's music do you like the most in shattered pixel dungeon (or boss theme or ascension theme, basically out of all the music in the game, what's your favorite)" - MAXIBOB

• 28:38 "I was wondering if there are any plans to implement new challenges or game modes in the future?" - MarcoTheDoomguy

• 29:43 "I’ve noticed in one other branch of Pixel Dungeon that coins were coded so that different textures appeared depending on the amount. Is this something you may consider for visial improvement of Shattered Pixel Dungeon?" - MarcoTheDoomguy