Not sure how long exactly, but I think the last time I made any significant progress, the sailors/boats were one endpoint, as was talking to the past demon king in the abbey.
Okay, so you'd have last played around 0.37.1. We're now on 0.41.3.
The "Nothing But The Truth" quest got finished and is now fully completable. A new quest "Poison Swamp" was added to the intermediate guild list. The Maid Academy is done now and you can progress all the way up to corrupting Paulina to the point where she leaves the party to become a full-time maid, or you kill Asmodeus. There are a bunch of new lewd scenes, and the infiltrating cheerleaders/dating Richard storylines have progressed a lot. There's also some new stuff with Laura, including the start of her corruption arc. And of course a buttload of bugs got fixed.
As much as that side of the game is what initially brought Aura to my attention, I confess that at this point I mostly only care about the gameplay, RPG elements, and pure side of things. I'm probably many times further behind the real world storylines than where I had mentioned I had last played.
Things like balancing and resource management are of greater import to me, but I wasn't about to read through dozens of updates, pre-releases, public releases, hotfixes, etc. I'll probably hold off until tomorrow's (?) release regardless.
What the fuck happened to blessed water prices
Why is it that every time I come back to this game it's balanced even worse
You guys know that every time you make a positive change you don't have to make a negative change elsewhere right? You never fix anything, you just move the problems somewhere else.
What do you perceive as having happened to them? The last update to Blessed Water increased its base price from 100 to 250 but the per-day increase was lowered from 4 to 2, so it goes up at half the speed it used to over time.
It takes 75 days to reach the intersection point where the prices match at 398, at which point every day after that it will cost less than it used to. This should result in a smoother curve of usability, since Blessed Water is more useful later than early on, when you've gained a number of willpower maluses.
The old way, it would reach its current base price around day 39 (when the new way it would cost 326), but then it costs close to 500 gold on day 100 (we'll use that as a benchmark since it's when demon generals power up).
Ths new way, it starts at 250, but then by day 100 it only costs 448.
It's even more unkind on pure runs (especially nightmare) that wants to, and effectively needs to, buy them up front on day 1 at minimum price.
Day 75 is a LONG time. Yes, they might be cheaper after day 75, compared to before, but they still need to be bought in those first 75 days at their cheapest to be efficient. That is a LOT of money. The PRICES might break even at day 75, but you would have ALREADY spent much, much more than that prior I would have to imagine.
It feels to me as if the only maths done was that if you buy all the holy waters on 75 they're equal to before, and cheaper after.
But if you bought them at their earliest availability at each increment, they're much more expensive before, and will take longer than those 75 days to become functionally cheaper.
On nightmare for example, you're buying 5 x 504 for 2520 gold on day 1, this is absurdity.
The day 20/21 restock of 2 will cost 2 x 580/584 for 1060-68.
The day 40/41 restock of 3 (post greed) will cost 3 x 660/664 for 1980/1992.
All up these 40 days of waters costs just over 5.5K.
Previously.
Day 1 - 5 x 208 = 1040
Day 20/21 - 2 x 368 = 736
Day 40/41 - 3 x 528 = 1584
Totalling about 3400 hundred.
There is a magnitude of difference in the dent it is putting in the EARLY wallet. They might be cheaper at the equivalent time later, and eventually reach a point of overall superiority, but it is STILL cost effective to buy them at these points.
It feels like you're saying we shouldn't buy them until we need them, but that's ludicrous and cost-ineffective. The early wallet can't take this, but the later wallet COULD take what happened before, the increases probably just needed a cap somewhere as the game expanded.
IMO - the solution should be a reversion to the original base price with the reduced per-day increase, but with each restock itself having a separate unique increase.
The consequence on the early wallet is too great with the later pay offs not being worth it IMO, money management early is a far greater issue. 1500 early is worth WAY more than 1500, eighty days in.
Again, I also see that you're tackling this from a corruption playthrough view in regards to willpower maluses, but pure playthroughs need them incredibly regularly as a result of needing to avoid forced-masturbation and lack of other corruption removers.
The early cost is too great on beginning a playthrough.
I don't find day 100 a good benchmark because an effective playthrough needs to be beating those generals before then, so parity happening so close to that milestone is a problem that impedes progress. Think of it in the same way as using the church to bless bombs early. It costs money, and not using them is cost effective, but there are faster returns if blessed bombs allow you to make progress somewhere sooner. It's similar logic here. Losing this money to early holy water purchases impedes your expenditures elsewhere to make progress. If you don't buy them up front, you're spending more later.
oh goblin teeth are also nerfed (no 1 mp is not a good tradeoff)
nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf nerf
that's all that ever happens. lets keep making this time-based resource game more and more obnoxious to stay within the 100 days. make things more expensive, take away money, weaken your upgrades . (I bet pure belphegor is still stupid too)
Genuinely the last completely positive change i remember was when i successfully argued the luck/rng point, especially when it came to agility.
I highly doubt that a brand new file can do everything within the 100 days as a pure character without using star knightess or drugs - ESPECIALLY meeting absurd targets like 20 day festival for more post-festival bonuses or other time-based things like an 80 day belphegor.
I know I can be annoying - but genuinely, please reconsider the early game holy water price changes and how you've nerfed certain enhancement materials. Pure runs have it tough enough as it is. Lewd runs have it so easy - they gain multiplier on multiplier, with buffs and books that give them damage for lewd actions taken that double or triple when performed pink or with focuses, all while profiting at the same time. Pure is already more difficult without further handicaps to the way they grow, comparatively.
Don't bother. Aura-Dev is a sadist that will only take your comments as he's doing the right thing. The game is too hard, and that's the way he likes it. He even admits he can't beat the game at its hardest level. The more we complain, the worse it gets. The more we bring up strategies to cope, the more he nerfs them. He'll tell you that pure is supposed to be harder than lewd, that is the way the game is intended.
Put your ego aside and play on a lower difficulty level so that the game is a bit more reasonable. I play on Explorer and find it very challenging.