Rebalance of Gradius's Option Seed
Opened this issue · 1 comments
Problem
I've played around with this mod a bit and from what I've found Gradius's Option is actually worse than Gradius's Option Seed, due to the latter being so overpowered. The sheer fact of firing triple projectiles on many characters leads to ridiculous gimmick such that taking the item has become a no-brainer whenever I see it, and it destroys all challenge the run had up until that point. The only vanilla class where this isn't the case is Mercenary/Acrid without Visions of Heresy, but "useless items" are par for the course with this game. (Leeching Seed, looking at you here.)
Solution: Increase Option Seed's Rarity
I'd like to see the rarity of Gradius's Option be brought up to red. That way, the Option Seed could remain as a very powerful item, but still be appropriately rare, and competing with such powerful peers as the Unstable Tesla Coil might make it into a decision that requires (some) thought.
Looking at Aetherium, the Inspiring Robot is another item which buffs drones/turrets, and it is a red item. It offers an all-around 50% bonus to their stats, which is still somewhat equal to firing triple projectiles (especially with the added drones in this mod). I'd still take Option Seed over either of these in its current state, but at least I'd be losing out on something more significant by doing so.
Raising the rarity to red might also make it fair for it to be givable to AI in Void Fields/Evolution/etc. I see that in the config it is disabled by default, but it might be worthwhile seeing if it would be more balanced with it as a red.
See below for the list of vanilla classes I tested with Option Seed to experiment with what felt like too much etc.
Alternative: Nerf Option Seed (Proc Chance)
Option seed appears to immediately offer a x2 or x3 proc rate, which is comparable to 6~12 syringes on an auto-aim auto-fire character. Acknowledging this won't stop certain situations like REX getting triple plant specials (yes, full triple heal rate), having the damage and proc chance scale would better reward players for picking up more than one, and let the item scale into later game better. It might still be too powerful even with this change, though, and modded characters might find their own ways to make absolutely ridiculous combos with.
Given
Additional context: What's Broken
I personally play the most with Engineer, so the absurdity of proc stacking is what's really getting me to disable Option Seed. I have played other characters and gotten Option Seed in the past, though, and some of them have their own ways they can mess with it beyond turret proc stacking.
REX's triple Tangling Growth offers way too much HP for what it should, it's incredibly overpowered in this case.
Artificer's secondaries have the downside of being hard to aim, but if you have three plasma spheres it's pretty hard to miss your target.
Captain's Orbital Probes also get duplicated by Option Seed, along with most of his attacks.
Huntress gets her primary and secondary duplicated by this, it's likely that Ballista gets duplicated as well (didn't test with it). Glaive becomes particularly broken once you add in backup magazines.
Bandit gets the expected bonuses and frankly feels quite tame. Extra shotgun is nice, though.
MUL-T cluster bomb seems to get out of hand really quickly in terms of proc chance.
Mercenary Slicing Winds gets completely overdone, with the exposes triggering each other and leading to huge automatic cooldown reductions.
Loader has no projectile attacks, and therefore isn't relevant.
Acrid gains the ability to use apply blight/poison 3x as quickly, which should tell you all you need to know.
Hello. Thank you for your interest. I would have already made it to a higher rarity if I was still modding the game. I am really hoping someone would step up and implement these changes.
Fret not, your issue is valid.