these AC maps are so beautiful 😳

We did this because it should not be needed

Despite range stacking being something we generally avoid in 2R4R, Gasoline has a special niche in that its damage is rate-limited by virtue of damage over time. Because of this, Gasoline's damage is somewhat inherently balanced, allowing us to lean into its AOE chip damage/weakening identity.

i finished deltarune hiatus over

SUPER JUMP???

oh you worked on the game? nice!!

While Ceremonial Daggers should remain as a powerful on-kill effect, being a red-tier item, its ability to linger between enemy waves and cause endless on-kill chains is a significant problem related to autoplay issues. 4 seconds of duration is plenty to keep chains going, without being overwhelming

BONUS FACTS
I HATE WEEPING FUNGUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

3: Most characters already hold/spam their primary attack, so Bands proccing from Shurikens reduces the depth of these items and the survivors' gameplay. This is especially true for Engineer, whose turrets I firmly believe should not be able to proc bands.

I made this change to Shuriken for three reasons.
1: Bands stealing your band procs on characters that already have very powerful ways to trigger Bands is frustrating, and playing around that only disrupts their gameplay
2: Assisting bleed on slower characters is a far more exciting niche

BONUS FACTS
- Shuriken's new behavior allows it to stack and reset bleed with no additional bleed items. I'm still deciding if this is overpowered or not

While the loss of % healing means healing items dont scale as well (a disappointment often expressed to us), it also means that armor items like the ones added in SwanSong are much more valuable - so players can now use their health as a resource to play in more dangerous and exciting ways.

%-Healing in particular is a core issue, as it means that any common item that uses it causes your recovery to only become faster over a run. This causes a snowball effect requiring enemies to kill the player faster, and players to kill the enemies faster in return, often with what we call AUTO-PLAY

In 2R4R, we wanted to greatly reduce overall player recovery to make other forms of defense more relevant without making you "functionally immortal". Vanilla healing rates are so high that the player needs to be killed in a huge burst of damage, which encourages cowardly gameplay and low EHP.

BONUS FACTS
- Bustling Fungus is the only common item that still heals for % maximum health. This is because I love bustling fungus
- Bungus has had its activation delay reduced by 90% and ticks twice as fast

We wanted to shift Capacitor's emphasis away from being an easy-to-use, high damaging equipment and more towards being a powerful on-demand stun. This is paired with the removal of Stun Grenade, so stuns are more valuable and more actionable overall.