Since we're not seeing a ton of discussion here, I'm just going to update this thread for the 2.0.1.0 patch I just put out.

I feel like the Cold Channel Solgard should be reverted to base game due to strengthen backline units and Last Divinity triple heavies in the DLC.

He feels stronger to me as-is because with the existing balance he can have a significantly better mid-game and significantly more HP in the late game. I'll do some more targeted testing, though, so thanks for the feedback. He may need to scale harder or something.

i only just started playing monster train, but the change to cultivate sentient seems like an odd choice to me, it prevents her from buffing squishies into murder machines, which i feel was the whole point of cultivation. there's a few others that seem odd like primordial now feels like it's not worth taking anything except superfood, but sentient is the one that feels weirdest to me.

Sentient I'll grant you. That change was from a long time ago where Cultivating Sentient was unbelievably bad, but the only reason I haven't reverted the change to the base game implementation (which is now fine, imo) is because enough people asked me to keep it across various social media. They enjoyed it as modded, so I left it in. I'm not opposed to changing that stance at some point if moods swing the other way, though!

As for Primordium, all I did was streamline the paths so you're not forced to mix Stalwart/Superfood. Aggressive Edible is unchanged, and Stalwart Snack is now an actual pickable path on its own due to a huge injection of survivability. What sort of issues are you having with it?

honestly i might just be bad at umbra in general, feed sweeper, smash face; wasn't as broken as it was in your video where where you just nobrained everything except divinity.

Consumer of crowns is a little overtuned tbh. I get that he should be powerful but he just straight up negates everything once he gets going. It's not that hard to get him going either even late in the game, worst case you have him backline with a frontliner that does a respectable chunk of damage.

Also if possible you should make it so the sap totem's infuse works like the rebalanced version of it since right now the infused version is just objectvely better

Updating this discussion thread for 2.0.3.0. Note the new entries in the change log marked in the OP!

Changes look great, esp the nerf to Tethys (Sweep+Sap2-4 was just insane).

Not sure if it was reported yet, but each time I play the changed Wilting Sapwood (Attack = health), the game crashes for me. Been there since v 2.01 for me, thought it would be a bug thats fixed next version anyways, so I never reported it myself, yet. ^^;

Not sure if the game does a crash report, will happily provide one if you can steer me where to find it...

Huh, it crashes the game? I haven't experienced that, but thanks for reporting! it should put out a crash log at the following location, which would be very useful to me in resolving the crash: C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\LocalLow\Shiny Shoe\MonsterTrain\logfile.log

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I'm a donkey, was still running on MT version 12661 (GOG user here, no automatic updates), when updating to v12993 it does not crash anymore.

Sorry for the false report >_<

Hi there, I gotta say that I'm enjoying this balance mod more than vanilla balance, it's good stuff!

I think Ambient Charge is too powerful the way it is now (Consume cards in hand, gain 1 echo per card consumed.) I can get like 5 to 9 echoes, inspires and etches and thin my deck out all at the same time with a 1 energy uncommon card. I'd say it's better than most of the wormkin rare spells like this. I'd suggest it needs to be a lot slower than it is now, and maybe do fewer good things at once. Some ideas:

Consume 1 random card in hand. Gain 1 echo. - Basically the existing effect but just one card consumed. Gives a little bit of everything, (1 consumed card, 1 etch, 1 inspire, 1 echo) which suits Ambient Charge feeling like a general purpose resource building card.

Consume 2 random cards in hand. - Thins your deck and gives a couple etch triggers. No echoes gained. Complements the consumed card playstyle and feels different to the other wormkin spells.

I think that kind of speed is more similar to the other uncommons. Both of those ideas develop nicely with Doublestack or Holdover upgrades. There's a choice whether you let the player choose what cards to consume or make them random. Random is quicker to play and more interesting imo.

Just some friendly ideas, cheers again for making the mod!

Thanks a ton for the feedback! I've seen Ambient Charge perform pretty effectively, but it's pretty tough to find a circumstance where you can perfectly take advantage of all of its effects. I think it might make sense to go up to 2 ember, but randomizing its effects is a very significant nerf. Comparing this to something like Returned Soul which lets you replay a specific card in your discard pile twice for two infusions and an etch, I'm not sure if it's totally out of line. Alternatively, even a card like Inferno feels stronger still.

I'll play a few more runs with it tonight and see if I can completely break it in a way where it feels too strong, so I appreciate you drawing my attention to it.

Hi again, thanks for hearing me out. Thinking over this a bit more I think what concerns me most with Ambient Charge is the muliplie consumes, and how powerful lots of etches are at once. There are only 2 other cards which consume more than just themselves - Gifts for a Guard and Sacrificial Resurrection (both rare.) My worry is that Etch triggers are very strong and being able to do many in a turn is amazingly powerful with things like:

Shellsmith - 50-100+ armour to all units on floor at level 3
Marshlord - pretty much get the bog wormling hatched in one turn even at level 1
Bog Wormling - gets +50/+50 if you consume 5 cards, up to +90/+90 in one go if you have a way of drawing a big hand.
First of Kin - maybe +30-50 attack. Doesn't seem so bad, but I made a floor based around one of these and even this was strong.

Things like this make me think that being an uncommon that can be reused is too good. I'm of the opinion that it's a rare level ability the way it is, and if it's going to be an uncommon it should be slowed or weakened in some way, like consuming fewer cards, having an extract cost, something like that. Obviously these are just ideas and anything you decide to do is cool!

Dusk, are you still actively working on this mod? If so, when do you expect to release the next version, and what changes will it include?