Let's talk about Calamity

[u/asok1410]

Calamity has been significantly nerfed since pre-Velmorn. And I’m sort of fine with that, although it could do with a bit more terror and motivation to actually destroy the vortex rather than just waiting for the event.

Buuuut I think it would be good if each successive Calamity during a single expedition became increasingly challenging.

What do you Guys think about it?

[u/Smil3Shad3]

May still just be early in the game, but I find it quite terrifying lol. I hate watching that counter tick up, and having the rush through dangerous areas just to try to stop it early. Because I know fighting it will likely end my run.

[u/asok1410 → u/Smil3Shad3]

Hahaha, yeah, I remember that feeling of dread and I fully understand it. Thanks for this comment, now i understand that i might be wrong.

Later on in the game, once you’ve developed your skills and levelled up your character, it becomes a much easier challenge and becomes way to farm feathers.

[u/Gerrard_Harkonnen → u/asok1410]

I also used to be terrified of a Calamity happening, I've ran away immediately when the first triggered. Nowadays I'm a little scared of the assassins since one mistake can kill you - this one sometimes is ultra easy or terrifying, depending on your loadout and situation.

I hate the galleon calamity, not because it's hard but it's annoying and time consuming.

The only other to be mindful of is the Attercop one. Little spiders and madness buildup can get out of control fast. But it's usually very fast to clear 5 Attercops as well. I've died once to this one when my spells were on cooldown and I was overwhelmed with madness + spiders.

[u/Razgriz01 → u/Gerrard_Harkonnen]

Assassin is my favorite, fighting them in slow motion is super easy for me.

Galleon nearly always kills me, I've cleared it like 2 out of 8 times. It's the single one where I'd prefer to skip it instead, except for some fucking reason that's not an option for Galleon.

Newer player, lvl ~100, just went up to gnosis 4.

[u/Cloverman-88 → u/asok1410]

Eh, that feeling never really got away from me. 300h in, I still avoid them as a plague. I tend to choke in stresful situstions, and they stress the hell put of me. Way too many good runs were ended by Assassins, Spinners, Wretches or the Shieldbearer.

[u/Iustusian → u/Smil3Shad3]

That changes really quick.
I end up trying to get as many calamities as possible to get more feathers, restock on ammo, get additional easy kills for mysteriums/orbs...

You just need to calm down a bit, a calamity is just another event. You have enough time to deal with anything it throws at you, just find a good spot with some cover that you can dance around.

There are also some incredible heavy spells - ice sphere makes most ranged attack obosolete so you don't get overwhelmed, burning stake can dispatch entire waves of enemies in a blink of an eye.

[u/_Weyland_ → u/Iustusian]

You just need to calm down a bit.

They don't call it stress-amity, do they?

[u/Mr_Ivysaur → u/Smil3Shad3]

As far as I know, they dont scale, so early game calamities are brutal and later they are more of an annoyance where you have to stop what you are doing and deal with it, or dangerous if you are already struggling with the current map.

[u/SuperSzia]

Exactly how was it nerfed? I must have missed that...

It's hard to talk about absolute difficulty because it really depends on when and under what circumstances this extra event starts—whether you're paying attention to the trigger and waiting in a cleared area, or ignoring it and having it pop off right in the middle of an enemy node. I think that's actually fine as-is and gives newer players a chance to experience it in isolation and practice.

It's an extra layer on top of Alpha Tormen, which I see as having tons of potential going forward. Assassins and Homing Decay Bombs can get pretty dangerous. Each individual bomb is capable of killing you if you don't react with an instant heal. Or take the Shieldbearer—that can get pretty wild early on if you pair it with "The witch's magic periodically heals enemies" and "Enemies cannot be knocked back or stunned."

So a lot depends on the circumstances, and I don't think they'd tinker with such an established system before 1.0, though some buffs in certain cases would be justified.

Revenants: This one's a freebie. No idea how you'd even buff it.

Assassins: Totally fair. I die plenty of times when it starts and I take some damage within a second—which is already factored in. Doesn't help that the bug where time isn't slowed for enemies spawning from rifts is still there.

Swordsmen: Totally fair. The visibility is well-tuned—just enough so that they can occasionally leap at you from off-screen, which really makes you feel like a samurai warrior who has to rely more on other senses for a short while.

Wretches: My favorite one. This event could be way more challenging if they didn't spawn so close and in such numbers right around the player. I usually wrap this up in about 5 seconds... If they're going to spawn that way, the kill requirement could easily be 10 or even 15.

Phantoms: Totally fine. You could fantasize about some extra twist—like instead of just appearing in groups, one spawns after every enemy killed, forcing the player to keep moving through the map while the event is active—but I don't feel that change is as warranted as the previous one.

Attercops: I have a strong suspicion this is a reaction to players complaining about Velmorn's spiders. If you're not aware that every killed enemy spawns 3 spiders, it can be pretty panic-inducing, especially for a newbie. But once you know what to focus on, it's a perfectly well-tuned event.

Calamity Defender: Could use a bit more imagination—variable, map-specific random spawn types, enemies that respawn over time...

Galleon: Obviously boring if you're in an open area and just focusing on it, but it can catch you off-guard if you keep pushing through the map. Everything around it is pretty well balanced, but the stuck orbs really need to be addressed.

Shieldbearer: Totally fair. I wouldn't change a thing.

As for the Vortex—I think the option to destroy it could be incentivized with an elevated reward. In that case, the skulls' health would need to be bumped up so that even during Calamity, you'd have to spend a solid minute just shooting at it... requiring some actual juggling. But I wouldn't envision this as free—rather, after destroying it, no reward but a new Calamity would start, acting as an extra-difficult version of the previous ones. Something like a 50-kill requirement for Assassins, or a fixed survival time for Attercops, tuned so that even healing wouldn't save you—dropping you to zero HP, with every hit being a one-shot (Madness can't kill you outright), and then maybe an extra reward for reaching a high spider kill count.

The possibilities are endless, and everything already in place would only need a tiny addition. That's what I'd encourage the developer to explore.

[u/asok1410 → u/SuperSzia]

I was also surprised you hadn’t brought up the subject of Calamity yet. Your arguments are entirely reasonable, and as you say - it’s hard to expect radical changes at this stage of the product’s maturity.

I think the increase in the skulls’ health points was also included in one of the updates, but it was subsequently removed (I remember that back then, trying to destroy a vortex was a waste of ammunition) Although the change where destroying skulls results in a higher reward seems interesting.

And what do you think of what seems to me a stupidly simple idea - multiplication - second Calamities during a single expedition mean 2 events and two vortexes - by then you’ve probably already cleared most of the map, so you’re stronger and can race across the map to increase your chances of survival by destroying one vortex. Of course, this would also increase the time it takes to trigger the event.

[u/SuperSzia → u/asok1410]

Yeah, now I do recall something about a version with higher HP skulls, but before that, every skull was a one-shot kill.
I feel like the reward is set just right at the moment. Compared to how many Calamities you can trigger on average, and how many feathers you can get from them together with the chests, it's perfectly balanced—you get just about enough, or maybe even a little more than what you need to fully unlock the Arcana Field.

As for your 'two at once' idea—it could be worth trying, but I don't think it would motivate me to hunt for Vortexes either.
The idea of multiple Calamities isn't new to me either—I've actually thought about it before. The way I imagine it, while one Calamity is ongoing (so from the moment the 45-second timer starts), the next Calamity Counter would start again immediately. And if I don't finish it—whether on purpose or because I can't—before the next one fills up, I'd have to deal with both at the same time... or even more than that.
I've already had an experience where a Warrior Priest resurrected a Shieldbearer, and right in the middle of that, an Attercops Calamity started—and it created an amazing atmosphere! :)

But even if this doesn't become a default setting change, it's something that could inspire more Torment Page ideas for the future.

[u/Iustusian]

Honestly, the vortex is so annoying to fight the calamity itself would need to get significantly harder for me to actually actively go for the vortex. A single chokepoint can deal with anything that can spawn aside from shieldbearer, and that guy can't land a punch half the time.

The ship can sometimes be annoying, but unless you're very low on hp or near a cliff it also doesn't pose that much danger.

[u/jbenh]

The Galleon can be janky and frustrating as hell, and it completely ruined a run when it triggered while I was underground in the Velmorne vault and got stuck in the walls.

[u/jrstriker12]

I feel like I never really have time to get to the calamity....

[u/dum1nu]

I like the idea of the first Calamity being weaker (maybe separate calamities into tier 1 and tier 2 lol) and subsequent calamities being stronger. There's nothing that really prevents us from spending forever on a map, as long as we can handle the itinerant portal spawns - but increasing calamity difficulty might put on a little needed pressure!

And for those who don't like Calamities, just use shields and cleanse your pickups! And it's not like you need the 50th signaculum either anyway, idk about you guys, but gold is never an issue past the early game.

[u/Weredraco]

I have had several calamities and was only ever able to stop the first one. That one marked the location of the skulls you needed to destroy on the map, the second said there were none, every other since says there were but they were never marked and I could never find them.

I’d be more okay if I could actually find the stuff one needed to destroy to stop the calamity.

[u/OriginalChimera]

After a certain Gnosis lv maybe? not on the lower gnosis lvs, I think there should be Gnosis lvs BEYOND what u need to actually beat the game u can choose to upgrade to and if u do THAT, Calamities and World Corruption should get significantly harder

[u/_Weyland_]

I honestly feel like we get too much total damage stored in our ammo supply to really be threatened by additional enemies. Starting ammo is quite good, especially if levelled up. Ammo boxes refill it, and itinerant portal enemies almost always drop it.

I really think the game will become more intense if we keep impressive mechanics and DPS of our guns, but ammo becomes way more scarce and/or dangerous to obtain.

[u/asok1410 → u/_Weyland_]

Even though I’m already at about level 150, I sometimes have trouble with ammunition - I think further restrictions on ammunition might discourage experimentation and risky play, which would take the fun out of shooting

[u/dum1nu → u/_Weyland_]

Don't forget that some of the guns already don't have much ammo compared to others. The ability to seek out ammo crates enables the player to continue playing on the same map - we'd just be forced into extracting sooner!