Risky assassin and Corrupting Power

[PokerChen]

Well, I think the playthroughs with these incredibilities can be fun, but with the new enemies that's been introduced since their entry, it's becoming very difficult to balance missile counts/avoid all the shots/etc. Perhaps it's me getting old and my reflexes & eagle-eyes aren't what they used to be. My reasoning is that they effectively prevent you from using most health sacrifice items, and also makes health shards useless, and both of these together will easily outstrip the benefits of either item.

What about the following adjustments to these 1 health playthroughs?

Risky Assassin:
- You also gain 50% chance to not take damage when hit.

Corrupting Power:
- You gain +1 to maximum shields, and can have a maximum of +3 shields. Corrupting Power is the only way for players to gain 3 shields in the game.

[Pepisolo]

Risky Assassin:
- You also gain 50% chance to not take damage when hit.

This would kind of cause the incredibility to lose a bit of ...purity? I would probably rather increase the bonus to offense that you get rather than give it some defensive boosts.

You gain +1 to maximum shields, and can have a maximum of +3 shields. Corrupting Power is the only way for players to gain 3 shields in the game.

Actually, looking at it. Corrupting Power does do a similar thing to Risky Assassin, maybe too similar? I wouldn't mind changing it to be the only way to get 3 shields, but unfortunately doing so would require gui and engine work. (Yes, I know it's annoying when I say that x feature might not be possible because it would require engine work, but if engine work is required it does significantly reduce the likelihood of the change happening).

To be honest, I rarely ever grab the Incredibilities, so if anyone has any more thoughts on these items, that would be great. Cheers!

[PokerChen]

I think the current Corrupting Power (+Energy/sec when not using energy) is actually slightly more powerful than risky assassin since it keeps your shield, and also allows you to defend against enemy shots with certain energy weapons. I.e. it can easily become a balanced offensive/defensive upgrade with the right loadout.
Relative to that, Risky Assassin equals perfect play or death. What if health shards or health bits gave the player a small damage bonus for the current floor?

Either way, interesting changes usually mean engine changes. So I'm not particularly fussed.

[Misery]

Relative to that, Risky Assassin equals perfect play or death.

Yep, that's the entire point of that one.  There are very, very few items in the game that were my idea, but that's one of them.  Which probably explains why it makes things so difficult, hah.  Seems that it's working exactly as planned.

Incredibilities aren't meant to give you any sort of outright advantage, after all.  They can certainly make things harder.

[Logorouge]

Risky Assassin:
- You also gain 50% chance to not take damage when hit.

The big problem I see with this one, is that it radically changes the gameplay of Risky Assassin from skill-based (dodge or die) to luck-based (flipped the coin and survived).

[Cinth]

Actually, looking at it. Corrupting Power does do a similar thing to Risky Assassin, maybe too similar? I wouldn't mind changing it to be the only way to get 3 shields, but unfortunately doing so would require gui and engine work. (Yes, I know it's annoying when I say that x feature might not be possible because it would require engine work, but if engine work is required it does significantly reduce the likelihood of the change happening).

It would be mostly UI changes to show a 3rd charge.  Changing the code should be relatively easy (value changes in relevant places).