Patreon Poll #8 - July 2020

Hey Patrons!

Here we go with another poll; on schedule!

This time around we’re taking a look at some of the game’s challenges. I’ve talked about wanting to overhaul the challenge system entirely, but that’s something large enough to deserve its own update. For now, I’m looking at ways to incrementally improve existing challenges, and perhaps add a few new ones. That seems like the perfect sort of thing to put to a Patreon poll!

For this poll, I’m going to be gauging interest in some possible tweaks to existing challenges. This poll is going to be a bit less competitive than previous ones. If there are multiple options with lots of support, I may implement all of them!

The winner(s) of this poll will have these ideas developed on and will receive improvements in a future update! I don’t have a definite plan as to when the winning challenge may end up ingame, but this one should be easy to roll into any update, so the one after 0.8.2 seems likely.

Faith is my Armor

Faith is my Armor is the last challenge in the game that just outright removes an item category. I’ve tried to reign in or rework these challenges as time as gone on, as outright removing game functionality is a cheap way to enhance difficulty. Faith is my Armor has always been a tricky case though, as removing armor entirely does change the game in an interesting way.

I’d like to adjust this challenge to keep the same effect on gameplay, while also allowing armor to exist again. One promising idea is for armor to grant its usual damage blocking effect, but only briefly. When armor absorbs damage it also weakens temporarily, which leaves you with little or no armor for subsequent hits. This keeps the same core gameplay of the challenge (find all the ways you can to evade damage), but lets the player find or invest in armor in order to make the mechanic a bit more forgiving for the first hit or two.

My main worry with a change like this is making the challenge way easier, so if needed I may adjust the ‘armor breaking’ mechanic to let the player go a little bit into negative blocking, especially if their armor is weak to begin with. This way being able to use armor is less of a pure boost versus the way the challenge is currently.

Pharmacophobia

Pharmacophobia has been untouched for similar reasons to Faith is my Armor. While just removing health potions is pretty boring in concept, the gameplay impact is pretty interesting. The game’s margin for effort gets a whole lot slimmer when healing is so scarce. Just like with Faith, I’d like to allow healing potions back in, and instead have the challenge adjust their mechanics. Also, just like with Faith, I don’t want to just make the challenge easier, so if health potions are allowed there needs to be something to offset this.

My best idea right now is to essentially invert the challenge. Rather than the player being forced to go without health potions, they instead depend on them. The challenge would be renamed to ‘Pharmacophilia’ and would involve the player needing to drink health potions to satisfy their crippling healing addiction. Health potions may provide some mild healing benefit in this challenge, but their main purpose would be to clear out an ‘addiction’ debuff that gets progressively worse over time. Recipes involving health potions would have similar adjustments: massively reduced direct benefit, but they keep the addiction at bay. I might have the debuff increment with exp, rather than time, and affect stats, rather than health, so that it’s distinct from hunger.

On Diet

On Diet was already softened up a bit in v0.6.4 when I changed it from ‘no food at all’ to ‘no food except for small rations’. In keeping with the theme of adjusting challenges that remove items, I’d like to adjust this one so that the game’s full suite of food can be present.

I think this is a simple fix, all that’s really needed is to give the player their regular food back, and amp up the rate at which hunger builds. The sweet spot is probably somewhere around a 3x multiplier, which would keep the same food-limiting nature of the challenge while also allowing all of the game’s food items to be present. Note that this wouldn’t affect starving damage, just hunger speed. Likely this would go along with renaming the challenge, perhaps to something based on gluttony.

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Please vote for as many options as you like, you don't need to vote for just one! I allow multiple votes as it means that a higher proportion of people will end up voting for the winning choice. It also lets me gauge interest and lets polls be a bit more flexible, I might choose to implement the top 2 choices in some polls for example.

All patrons are encouraged to share their opinion by commenting and voting, but currently only the votes from Golden+ Supporters are counted when determining a poll winner. Votes from Shattered Supporters are worth double!