>The only other slight I found is that it didn't seem that matching 4,5, a cross pattern, or comboing increased the effect of the orbs that much.
I agree that they should feel special; my approach was, rather than making these reward a power bonus every time you match them, to have them be conditions for activating orb/relic effects. In case you're talking about these latter orbs/relics feeling underpowered, I believe that this sensation is due to the fact that all the bonuses that I currently have in the game are multiplicative, exacerbating the problem of a low amount of combos doing way less damage than a high amount of them. The idea of making some of these bonuses additive sounds excellent because it still rewards every level of skills while being much more useful to new players, which I'm seeing is needed given the consensus on the game being too difficult. Thank you for putting me on this train of thought.