Okay, so I finally finished the current update...in like a few hours-
I'll first go over my current thoughts on the state of the game, before I break out the conspiracy board-
I think the new system is definitely more balanced...albeit, I am only able to speak from an endgame perspective, I'm sort of high enough level to where it's unlikely anything will be challenging, BUT I DID in fact reach the end of a dungeon run where an enemy could actually kill me, the addition of enemies having a chance to counter and ambush the player in certain biomes is actually a somewhat welcome challenge, although...I can already see what the new meta is going to be, but it's not nearly as egregious as previous game-breaking metas. Ironically, ice wall is the new meta again, with the guaranteed crits and evades being the best defensive options in the game, but it's excusable, given that it is essentially an upgrade which requires maxing out Mirabelle's ice wall. And it's not a 100% chance to proc.
...although it does feel like it sometimes, it's hard to tell given that the upgrade in question gives "+20% chance to freeze on ice wall", although...does the freeze chance change when it's used as a critical hit? What's the base chance for ice wall to freeze without the upgrade? Because it definitely feels like more than 20%.
Regardless, I imagine the game to be much more challenging and fun on a fresh save with these changes, and it's unfair to expect the game to be balanced around maxed out upgrades, especially given that many of us have just been carrying over saves for multiple updates.
But like I said, the ambush enemies in the swamp are able to counter even these strategies at higher levels.
The one thing I'm unsure about gameplay wise is that, while I could have just been misunderstanding or missed something, I don't think I actually gained anything from the new potion event in the dungeon, where you choose between a speed or mana potion, but I could be wrong. I also like how dungeon navigation isn't quite as linear anymore, even if it was a bit jarring to get used to after being able to travel freely for so long.
Ultimately, I'm satisfied with how the current dungeon mechanics feel, at least to my taste. The guaranteed crits and evades feel earned rather than like an unintended exploit, since all their options are locked behind late-game maid upgrades. The one change I might suggest making to them, give or take, is the fact that, while guaranteed crits reset on every dungeon run, guaranteed evades don't, so it can snowball (pun not intended), into the player having stores of dozens upon dozens of guaranteed evades across multiple runs.
I honestly think that if that one issue were fixed, and a new dungeon run set your guaranteed evades to 0 like how it appropriately resets crits, it'd be perfectly balanced as is. That's it.
ALL HAIL THE RETURN OF THE ICE QUEEN!
Edit: Yeah, the new potion event is broken, selecting JUST the MP potion or JUST the swift potion work as intended, but if the player picks both, even on a successful roll, they'll get neither.
Where's the holy water spray bottle when you need it?
