Shattered Pixel Dugeon v0.4.1: Balance Changes

After some delays, here we are, another shattered update!

0.4.1 is aimed at making a number of balance and QOL improvements in a post equipment rework game. Wands and armor are much more useful, several items have been adjusted and tuned, and there are some nice convenience additions too such as keys no longer taking inventory space!

The update is available now through Google Play, and will be available to desktop, amazon, and f-droid users shortly, along with the source release.

Thanks so much for playing, if you have any feedback don’t hesitate to either contact me here, or email me directly.

Here is a full list of changes, but make sure to check below for some change context:

Armor Balance Changes:
- Armor now has a min damage block value
- Armor gains more blocking from upgrades
- Prison+ enemy damage increased
- Evil Eyes reworked

Wand Balance Changes:
- All wands damage adjusted/increased
- Upgraded wands appear slightly less often
- Wand of Lightning bonus damage reduced
- Wand of Fireblast uses fewer charges
- Wand of Venom damage increases over time
- Wand of Pris-Light bonus damage reduced
- Corrupted enemies live longer & no longer attack eachother
- Wands in the holster now charge faster

Class Balance Changes:
- Mage's Staff melee damage increased
- Mage's Staff can now preserve one upgrade
- Cloak of Shadows buffed at lower levels
- Some Battlemage effects changed

Ring Balance Changes:
- Ring of Force weaker at 18+ strength
- Ring of Tenacity reduces more damage
- Ring of Wealth secret rewards adjusted
- Ring of Evasion now works consistently

Artifact Balance Changes:
- Dried Rose charges faster, ghost HP up
- Horn of Plenty now charges on exp gain
- Master Thieves Armband levels faster
- Sandals of Nature level faster
- Hourglass uses fewer charges at a time

Various Item Balance Changes:
- Many shop prices adjusted
- Piranha rooms no longer give cursed gear
- Brimstone glyph healing reduced
- Lucky enchant deals max dmg more often
- Dazzling enchant now cripples & blinds
- Flail now can't surprise attack
- Extra reach weapons no longer penetrate

Misc Changes:
- Added a new journal button with key display
- Keys now exist in the journal, not inventory
- Improved donator menu button visuals
- Chasms now deal less damage, but bleed
- Increased the efficiency of save data storage
- Translation updates
- Various bugfixes

Armor

Defensive players rejoice! Armor is now much more valuable, gaining significantly more power per upgrade, and reducing damage much more consistently. While armor still isn’t totally necessary, so players still have flexibility in their upgrade choice, those who invest a bunch in armor shouldn’t feel like they are picking the inferior option nearly as much.

More Enemy Damage

So as to not make the game too easy, enemy damage is being adjusted to compensate for the armor changes. This most significantly effects lategame enemies, but earier foes are getting some adjustments too. Players who upgrade armor a bunch won’t notice too much of a difference, but those who go all-in on offense are gonig to feel the hurt!

Wands

Wands are tricky to balance, I want them to be competitive to melee weapons, while not outpacing them, and also still being quite different and unique. Back in 0.3.0 I tried to rebalance wands, and while they were improved, clearly I didn’t give most wands enough power. That’s changing now, with most wands getting a nice boost to damage and improvements to their effects. Most notably, all wands now have damage which scales linearly, meaning that wands with small numbers of upgrades will deal considerably more damage than they used to. It’s now much more viable to spend a lot of upgrades on a wand, or just a couple.

Evil Eyes

along with armor improvements, the lategame damage-dealer enemies known as evil eyes are getting a changeup too. It is now possible to evade their magical attacks, just like other magic based enemies. Eyes will now take a little time to charge up their deathgaze, giving you a chance to escape! Careful though, as taking the deathgaze hit will cause you much more damage than before!

Keys and the UI

Keys now no longer exist in the inventory, but instead in the journal. The Ui at the top-right has been adjusted with this in mind, quickly showing you what keys you have, and also giving a convenient button to let you access your journal and catalogs. In addition to being more convenient, this change is paving the way for functionality to be added to the journal in the future.