BrogueCE
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tmewett
Increase power of some weaker items
It could be worth going over existing items and seeing if there are any which, even in favourable situations, are still a bit to underpowered to e.g. justify pick from a vault. Buffing could be tweaking the numbers or enchant curve, or even changing the effect and reworking the item. Not every item has to be game winning at +12 or anything but there might be opportunity to create some new variety in strategy space.
More of a suggestion but it's adjacent to this issue. I'd suggest the Staff of Lightning - if cast on a creature standing in water - chains to other creatures in the water (potentially including the player). This is consistent with Brogue's philosophy of interractions making sense, gives the staff some environmental interraction and more flexibility as an AoE damage dealer.
Good topic... here's my 2 cents.
Armor of multiplicity: doesn't scale at all with enchantment, and is increasingly flimsy at deeper levels when heavy-hitting monsters kill you in two hits. Additionally, it only procs when you get hit, so higher armor values make it less useful as a runic. Perhaps increase proc percentage or clone duration with enchantment level.
Armor of absorption: scales linearly with enchantment, but that becomes practically moot at deeper levels, so I never enchant. Perhaps make absorption max hyper-linear, or make it more of a sure thing by setting a min to about half the max.
Armor of reprisal: I'm not actually sure what it's enchantment curve looks like, but if it's not hyper-linear, it's useless :)
Ring of light: slightly useful, but never worth enchanting as-is. Maybe combine the effects with ring of awareness, then it might be worth a ring slot and a competitive alternative to clairvoyance.
More of a suggestion but it's adjacent to this issue. I'd suggest the Staff of Lightning - if cast on a creature standing in water - chains to other creatures in the water (potentially including the player). This is consistent with Brogue's philosophy of interractions making sense, gives the staff some environmental interraction and more flexibility as an AoE damage dealer.
Multiple people have suggested this over the years, including Pender himself, and yeah I've always loved the idea.
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ring of light, ring of transference
- players don't upgrade these items, they just wear them at whatever bonus theitem started at. probably just need a lil better numbers?
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shattering charm
- incredibly niche item. but what if possessing a shattering charm gave you the power to "phase" through walls that are crystalizing/shattering? this could be an always-on feature that combos with shattering scrolls, or in more keeping with other charms, the special phasing feature could be active only when the charm is on cooldown, ie, has been recently used.
It's not always obvious to new players that rings of light are useful, since they don't do much in the early game. Someone made a Brogue variant that (among other things) makes invisible enemies visible when wearing a ring of light. That helps somewhat, but wouldn't be enough for it to be useful in the early game. So maybe the ring could also let you see underwater enemies? Being able to spot eels, bog monsters, etc might be sufficient to not make it feel underpowered early on.
It could be worth going over existing items and seeing if there are any which, even in favourable situations, are still a bit to underpowered to e.g. justify pick from a vault. Buffing could be tweaking the numbers or enchant curve, or even changing the effect and reworking the item. Not every item has to be game winning at +12 or anything but there might be opportunity to create some new variety in strategy space.
It is fun sometimes to have a seed, where no powerful items span early. And as a result, you play a more hardcore version of brogue, where every means of survival is used. Giving all the items more potential when enchanted may lead to disappearing of "hard seeds", so we have to be careful with this. But I agree with your idea, some items balance can be improved, the game should develop. Carefully.
More of a suggestion but it's adjacent to this issue. I'd suggest the Staff of Lightning - if cast on a creature standing in water - chains to other creatures in the water (potentially including the player). This is consistent with Brogue's philosophy of interractions making sense, gives the staff some environmental interraction and more flexibility as an AoE damage dealer.
The idea for staff of lightning and water is nice, but staff of lightning is already one of the best battle staves, with no immune enemies, and hitting several enemies in a row.
Chaining mechanics can be very unwanted when playing with allies.
In another game, "pixel dungeon", that was inspired by Brogue, "hit several enemies in a raw and reflect from a wall once" was given to the "staff of disintegration" and "staff of lightning" was made a separate staff that hits one target, but after hits everyone who is in the same pool of water with the hit enemy (or has chaining effect in some forks of that game).
Good topic... here's my 2 cents...
You are right about the weakness of the ring of awareness (no one will pick it in a treasury, and no one will ever enchant it). and the ring of light too. But even if combine this two rings into one, will such a ring be worth enchanting? I agree that the ring if awareness and the ring of light can be improved. But how?
About runics - still the armor with any runic is slightly better than without it, I often played brogue enchanting and using a non-runic armor. Maybe more runics should help against magic, not only reflective one. E.g. absorption - does it absorb magical damage? Or maybe the ring of awareness could reduce magical damage? Like the hero is more aware and can partially avoid the sudden firebolt.